Shelter
by Athena Alexandria
Summary: Rick and Andrea search for a safe place to begin rebuilding their lives. AU Futurefic.
1. Chapter 1

_Who else is over the Governor? I decided to set this story about a year in the future, when season 3 is just a distant memory. Everyone on Team Rick (which now includes Tyreese) is still alive because I didn't have the heart to kill any of them._

* * *

SHELTER

Andrea flicked the wipers on to clear the snow from the windshield, leaning forward as far as her seat belt would allow to peer through the glass. After living most of her life in Florida, she wasn't used to driving in such icy conditions and it still made her nervous, especially on a starless night like tonight.

"You want me to take over?" Rick, who was sitting beside her in the passenger seat, asked.

"No, I've got it," she assured him. He'd already been driving for the better part of the day; even though he would never admit it, she could see that he was exhausted, his eyes bleary and rimmed with dark shadows. "We'll change over again in a few hours, but until then, you should try to get some rest."

"Your call," he told her, sinking back into his seat and letting his head fall lightly against the window.

Andrea followed his gaze to the rear view mirror, sharing his smile at the sight of his children asleep in the back like matching bookends, Judith strapped securely in her booster seat while Carl stretched out across the remainder of the backseat. While she knew she would never be able to replace Lori, in the months that they had been together, she had fallen in love with Rick's little family. Until recently she had thought helping him to raise Judith was the closest she would ever come to having a child of her own, but it was beginning to look as though that might no longer be the case.

They continued on in silence for a dozen miles or so, the highway deserted except for the two cars that carried the rest of their group, until Rick ordered, "Stop".

Andrea obediently slammed her foot on the brake. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Carl bolt upright as the car lurched to a halt. "What?" she asked Rick, one hand on the wheel, the other flying instinctively to the gun holstered at her side.

His attention was focused on something outside his window. "See that road?" He pointed to a narrow track that snaked up the foot of the mountain and vanished among the trees. "I want to find out where it goes."

It wouldn't be a bad plan in the daylight, but it was pitch black outside. "Are you sure that's a good idea, Rick? We don't know what's up there. We could be driving straight into a herd."

"When was the last time you saw a walker?"

Hours had passed since they had encountered another soul, living or undead; while it was true that the walkers appeared to be thinning out the further north they travelled she wasn't sure it was a sign that they should go exploring.

"That doesn't mean they're not out there," she protested, thinking that they should at least wait until morning.

"We've been on the road for days without stopping except to trade places," Rick insisted. "How long do you think we can keep this up?"

She knew better than anyone that sooner or later they would need to find a place to hunker down for the winter, but that didn't mean it had to happen tonight. "As long as we have to to keep from becoming walker bait."

"Dad's right, Andrea," Carl piped up from the backseat, startling them both into silence. "You need to sleep – both of you. And so does Judy. She's really hot. I think she might be sick."

Now that he mentioned it, Andrea could see that Judith was a little pale, her normally rosy cheeks flushed a brighter shade of pink than usual.

Rick unbuckled himself and lent into the back, pressing his palm to his daughter's forehead. "Shit, she's burning up," he confirmed for Andrea's benefit. "We need to get her someplace warm."

He returned to his seat, staring into the trees while he thought this over. "Here's the plan," he said finally, "We go slow, and at the first sign of trouble, we turn back."

"Okay," Andrea agreed, putting the car back into gear, "but if anything goes wrong, I'm eating you first."

He chuckled, rewarding her with a brief lop-sided grin before his mood turned serious again.

"Carl, get your gun ready," he told his son, drawing his own pistol. "I want you to watch that side. I'll watch this one. Andrea, you just worry about the road."

She flashed her blinker to signal to the others that they were turning and began the slow ascent up the mountain.

There was nothing but trees on the way up; as they neared the top, a huge stone and wood structure came into view.

"What is that?" Carl asked, appearing in the gap between the seats.

Rick's eyes drifted from the building to the remnants of a now defunct chair lift. "It looks like some kind of ski lodge."

"Can we go in?"

Rick turned to Andrea with a questioning look.

"Food, water, shelter… I bet they even have a generator," she agreed. "This could be the answer to our prayers."

"You think we should risk it?"

From the outside it appeared safe, but so had the CDC and Woodbury and so many other places that had claimed the lives of people in their group; there was a part of her that wanted to tell him that they should keep driving, but the other part was so weary that she couldn't bring herself to put up any more resistance.

"You said it yourself – we need to get Judy inside or who knows what will happen. Right now this is our only option."

Rick nodded and she let the car roll to a stop, far enough away from the building that they could still make a quick retreat if they had too.

"We'll wait for the others to catch up," he told them, "and then I'll take Carl and Daryl and go check it out."

They were meant to be a team. "Rick," she complained, but he cut her off before she could argue any further.

"This is not a debate. I need you here in case we don't make it back. Keep the engine running, and if anything happens, you drive and you don't stop until you reach someplace safe."

She shook her head stubbornly. "No. I'm not leaving you – any of you." She remembered all too well what it was like to be stranded.

"Yes, you are," he insisted. "I mean it, Andrea. This isn't about you and me – this is about Judith. I need to know that you'll protect her."

Andrea sighed. He had her there. It was one thing to risk her own life, but she couldn't put his daughter in danger. "Of course I will, Rick," she assured him.

She laid her palm against the stubble on his jaw. "Just… be careful, okay?" She needed him in one piece if she was going to make it through the difficult months that lay ahead.

"I will if you will," he agreed, threading his fingers lightly through her long hair as he leaned over the gearbox to kiss her. His mouth lingered on hers, pressing a second smaller kiss to her lips before he pulled away and climbed out of the car.

Carl followed suit, and Andrea watched them approach the vehicle behind them, holding hurried conferences with the rest of the group. Daryl hopped out of the last car and then they were off, weapons at the ready as they disappeared around the side of the lodge.

Andrea remained in the driver's seat, drumming her fingers anxiously on the wheel as she waited for them to return.

When ten minutes passed without any sign of them, she considered going in after them, but she had promised Rick that she would stay with his daughter.

"What's taking them so long, Judy?" she asked her, adjusting the rear view mirror so that she could see her without taking her eyes off the lodge.

The little girl just blinked at her in sleepy confusion.

Andrea let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding when, after what felt like an eternity, all three of them finally emerged from the front entrance looking no worse for the experience.

She rolled down the window, poking her head out as soon as they were within shouting distance. "What happened?"

"It's clear," Rick called back. He stopped alongside their car while Daryl continued on to update the others. "A few walkers in concierge uniforms but nothing we couldn't handle. With a bit of luck, we might be able survive the winter here."

"You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that." She killed the engine and opened her door, stumbling slightly when she tried to stand up too fast.

Rick grabbed her arm to steady her. "You're not coming down with something too, are you?" he asked, grazing her cheek lightly with the back of his fingers to gauge her temperature. "You don't seem to be running a fever."

"I'm fine," she assured him quickly, flashing him a watery smile. "Just need to get my land legs back." She was pretty sure that it had more to do with the fact that she was at least mildly anaemic, but then who wasn't these days?

To her relief, he seemed content with this answer. "You know, I don't blame you for feeling a little faint," he teased her gently. "When was the last time any of us had a decent meal?"

"Or a shower. Or slept in a bed." Mindful of the fact that Carl was standing a few feet away, no doubt listening to every word, she raised her eyebrow discreetly and Rick broke into a sly grin in response.

They moved the cars up to the main entrance, and then Carl went with Rick to help him unload their bags from the trunk, leaving Andrea with the unenviable task of trying to wrestle an irritable one year old back into her coat and boots. Once she was satisfied that the little girl was sufficiently rugged up against the biting cold, she lifted her onto her hip and headed over to meet the others.

"Everyone stay close," Rick told them as they all filed into the lobby, chattering excitedly."I think we should stick to the first floor tonight, then if all goes well, we can spread out."

They claimed two large suites at the end of the hall: Rick, Andrea, Carl, Judith, Michonne and Tyreese in one, and Glenn, Maggie, Hershel, Beth, Daryl and Carol in the other.

They were beyond starving at this point, after weeks spent rationing what little food they did have, so they raided the industrial size kitchen next. The contents of the bank of gleaming stainless steel refrigerators had long since gone bad, but they managed to find some packets of pasta and canned tomatoes that were still inside their expiration date, allowing Carol and Beth whip up something that almost tasted like spaghetti bolognaise.

But the real highlight of the meal was the wine Daryl found in the cellar when he went to check on the generator. By the time they had cleared their plates, everyone was a little tipsy.

Everyone except Andrea.

"You're not drinking?" Rick asked her when he noticed that her glass was still full.

She didn't want to have that conversation in front of the others, so instead she jerked her head pointedly at his daughter, who was sitting between them, picking up fistfuls of pasta from the plastic tray of her highchair and shoving them into her orange mouth.

"One of us has to stay sober," she reminded him. "Who's gonna change her diaper if we're all drunk?"

"I never thought of that," Rick admitted, scratching his head sheepishly, and everyone at the table laughed. He pushed his own glass away. "I should probably slow down too."

After dinner, people began retiring to their rooms. Andrea felt slightly nauseous from having a full stomach for the first time in weeks, so while Rick got Judith settled in the room she was sharing with Carl, she chose a novel from the shelf in the common room and went to lie down.

Less than a chapter into the story, she knew that it was unlikely to become one of her favourites, but it was so nice to unwind without the threat of being attacked that she was willing to forgive almost anything.

"The kids are asleep," Rick announced when he joined her in the bedroom, easing the door shut behind him.

She lowered the book to her chest. "Romantic," she teased him.

"It is when you're a parent."

He stood with his hands on his hips, regarding their surroundings appreciatively, his eyes travelling from the bay window that took up most of one wall, to the fireplace opposite the foot of the bed. "I can't believe we have a whole room to ourselves. How long has it been since we had this much privacy?"

She pretended to think about this, even though in reality, she could calculate it more or less down to the day. "Too long," she agreed.

He removed his gun belt and yanked off his boots, crawling onto the bed until he was hovering over her. "Well in that case, we better make the most of it," he told her, plucking the book from her hands and tossing it onto the nightstand as he moved in to kiss her.


	2. Chapter 2

_I think this must be the most stressful two weeks in history for Andrea fans! It's a sad day when you're actually rooting for someone to give Michonne to the Governor just so you can get a glimpse of what's happening inside his Chamber of Horrors. Thank God for that promo! Before that I was ready to throw my remote at the TV! ;)_

* * *

Chapter 2.

"This is so surreal," Andrea commented the next morning. Day was breaking outside and she was still tangled up in bed with Rick, her cheek pillowed on the warm skin of his chest. "It feels like we're on vacation."

"You know I can't even remember the last time I took one?" he admitted, his fingers ghosting over her bare back, tracing out some invisible design. "Every summer, Lori would bring home a brochure for Disneyland or Hawaii, but there was always some reason why I couldn't get away."

Andrea bristled slightly at the mention of his late wife. Her discomfit had less to do with jealousy than guilt, she realised, because while she hadn't set out to profit from Lori's death, the worst thing that had ever happened to Lori had become the best thing that ever happened to her.

Sensing the sombre turn Andrea's mood had taken, but misinterpreting the cause, Rick pressed a soft kiss into her hair. "Sorry. I shouldn't talk about that when I'm here with you."

Andrea couldn't fault him for wanting to keep his wife's memory alive, not when they both had complicated pasts, which was one of the things that made them work so well as a couple. They both knew what it was like to suffer, to lose, to claw your way back to sanity after your faith in yourself and the world had been shattered; as a result, they understood how precarious the happiness they had found together was, how easily it could all be taken away.

She lifted her head, propping herself on her elbows and resting her chin on her hands over his sternum so that they were face to face. "It's okay. You were married a long time. You had two children together. Her name is bound to come up occasionally."

"I know, I just don't want you to think…"

"I don't," she assured him, even though in her darker moments, she still wondered if she was only there in his life and in his bed because Lori wasn't. It saddened her that if the world hadn't ended, they probably never would have met, each going about their separate lives, blissfully unaware of the other's existence.

The tension relaxed from his brow, his frown giving way to a tender smile. "Good, because right now you're the only woman I want to be with."

He kissed her, and she allowed herself to get lost in the feeling of his strong hands and insistent mouth, until the niggling sense of guilt she had been fighting since dinner got the better of her.

"Rick," she said to get his attention when she had mustered up enough willpower to push him away. "We need to talk."

"I finally get you alone and all you wanna do is talk?" he murmured, burying his face in her neck.

"I'm serious," she complained, letting her eyes drift closed despite herself, but before she could say any more, they were interrupted by a loud wail coming from the next room.

Rick groaned, rolling away from her and running his hands over his face. "What were you saying about a vacation?"

"You want me to get her?" she asked him, sitting up and combing her hair with her fingers while she scanned the room for her clothes.

He slid out of bed, pulling his jeans on as he went. "No, you just focus on getting your strength back," he told her, stooping to kiss her one last time with a wicked smirk that made her wish Judith had decided to stay asleep a little longer. "I want you well rested for tonight."

* * *

Carol was already in the kitchen with Daryl, stirring a huge stock pot of oatmeal when Andrea wandered in.

"Good morning," she greeted them, and for the first time in a long time she was sure that she actually meant it.

There were two decanters of steaming black coffee laid out on the bench, along with a collection of mugs stamped with the hotel restaurant's logo. Andrea reached for the nearest one and then hesitated. "Is one of these decaf?"

Carol pointed to the other with her free hand and Andrea poured some into a cup, settling herself on the stool next to Daryl's.

"Sounds like someone got lucky last night," Carol teased her.

Andrea lifted her mug with both hands, taking a sip to hide her smile. "And this morning," she agreed and both women laughed.

Daryl looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Where's Casanova now?" he asked Andrea.

"With Judith." To Carol, she added, "I should probably take them something to eat."

"Tell him I'm gonna take a look around after breakfast, make sure the place is clear of geeks if he wants to come with," Daryl said as Carol scooped oatmeal into three bowls and loaded them onto a tray with a bottle of water for Judith and coffee for Rick.

"I'll let him know," Andrea agreed.

She passed Carl in the hall on her way to back their suite, where she found Rick sitting on the spare twin bed with Judith – stripped down to her diaper –, trying to coax her into drinking from her plastic Sippy cup.

"How's the patient?" Andrea asked him, placing the tray down and settling herself beside him.

"This is so much harder than it was when Carl was a baby," he confessed, accepting the bowl Andrea handed him. He offered a spoonful to Judith, emitting a heavy sigh when she turned her head away in refusal. "What I wouldn't give to be able to call the paediatrician and have him tell me I'm overreacting." He returned the bowl to the tray and eased his daughter down onto the bed, smoothing the sweaty hair back from her forehead.

Andrea squeezed his shoulder. "She's going to be fine, Rick. We all are. Things are already better than they were yesterday."

"I wish I shared your optimism." He picked up his coffee. "What was it you wanted to talk about earlier?"

She decided that now wasn't the best time to be having that discussion. "Nothing."

He studied her expression as though searching for clues. "Are you sure? Because it seems like you've got something on your mind."

"I'm just worried about Judith," she lied.

He sighed again. "Aren't we all?"

"Daryl wanted me to tell you that he's going to scope out the rest of the grounds today if you're interested," she said, hoping to steer the conversation in a different direction.

"Normally I would be, but I'm a little busy right now. If you see him again, tell him to go ahead and ask Tyreese and Michonne."

"You should go," she insisted. "I'll take care of Judy."

The look he gave her was dubious. "You?"

This shouldn't have pissed her off as much as it did, but the strain of keeping such a huge secret from him was beginning to wear on her. "You don't think I can handle a sick baby?" she demanded indignantly.

"It's not that," he assured her, struggling to hold back a laugh. "I just can't believe that you of all people would volunteer to sit this one out. Normally I have to beg you to stay put."

She couldn't deny that she would miss going hunting with Michonne and the boys, but she was smart enough to know that in her current condition, it presented an unnecessary risk. It was one thing to run into trouble; another to go out looking for it.

Still, that didn't mean she had to be happy about it - especially if he insisted on making fun of her.

"In case you didn't notice, I'm offering you a 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card here, so just shut up and take it before I change my mind," she snapped, doing her best to look stern despite the fact that her anger was already fading.

"Yes, ma'am," he agreed, grinning at her.


	3. Chapter 3

_So that happened and it sucks and my love for the show will probably never be what it was - Hell, the show will never be what it was or at least what it had the potential to be! - but I'm willing to keep writing this as long as you guys keep reading._

* * *

Chapter 3.

Following Hershel's advice, Andrea ran Judith a bath, sitting her in the warm water while she sponged her down with a washcloth. To her relief, not only did this bring her fever down slightly, but it seemed to calm her as well, enough that after a while, she stopped fussing and started splashing around. It was the first sign of animation she had shown all morning; Andrea felt the knot in her stomach begin to relax as she watched the little girl kick in the shallow pool, amused by the ripples her feet created.

She looked so happy that Andrea was debating whether or not to extract her before the water cooled too much and her delicate skin pruned when Carol appeared in the doorway. "I can take the next shift if you want to catch up to Rick and the others," she offered.

"Thanks, but we're doing okay," Andrea assured her, lifting Judith into a towel on her lap so that she could dry her off.

She expected Carol to leave then, but she stepped the rest of the way into the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind her. "Are you?" she asked quietly. "This may be none of my business, but you haven't been acting like yourself."

Andrea thought about confiding in her, but she couldn't bring herself to tell anyone her news when Rick still didn't know. She forced a serene smile onto her face. "We have a roof over our heads, food, hot showers, comfortable mattresses… Why wouldn't I be?"

"This place has been a godsend," Carol agreed. She hesitated as though waiting for Andrea to say something else before adding, "Well, if you need help with Judith just holler."

Andrea nodded. "Before you go, can I ask you a question? It's about Sophia."

A flicker of pain passed through Carol's eyes at the mention of her daughter. "Sure."

Andrea considered dropping the subject, but she needed to hear her answer. "If you'd known how it was going to end, would you still have had her?" A little voice in her head told her that it was selfish to bring a child into a world where an early death was almost guaranteed, but was it really better never to be born at all?

Carol perched on the edge of the bathtub opposite her. "It's no secret that Ed was a bastard," she said, and the two women exchanged tiny smiles at the memory of that day down at the quarry, "but Sophia… She was the one thing that made my marriage bearable. She gave me the strength to get up in the morning when all I wanted to do was lay down and die. So would I do it again? Absolutely, because every moment I had with her was worth it, even if I didn't get to keep her for as long as I'd hoped."

She stroked Judith's dark head, ruffling her damp curls. "What happened to Sophia was unnatural," she insisted. "But this… This is nothing like that. Babies get sick all the time. You just have to ride it out as best you can."

It was then that Carl poked his head into the room. "You have to come look at what Dad and the others found!" he told them. "And bring Judy – she should see this too!"

Carol glanced over at Andrea with a mystified look and Andrea shrugged, reaching for Judith's diaper bag.

Once Judith was dressed, the three of them followed Carl down the hall and up a flight of stairs to a large room filled with rows of blue matinee chairs. A ten-foot screen hung over one wall.

The rest of the group – including Rick, Daryl, Tyreese and Michonne – were already gathered there, talking amongst themselves.

On the way in, Andrea stopped to admire the old fashioned projector, set up on a stand at the back of the room. "Does it work?" she asked hopefully, wiping the dust off the lens with the sleeve of her sweater.

"See for yourself." Daryl flicked a switch and it shudder to life.

Up on the screen, a child-sized zombie who reminded Andrea eerily of Penny lunged at a woman – her mother? –, stabbing her repeatedly in the torso with a spade. Andrea jumped back, letting out an involuntary scream. In her arms, Judith began to whine. "Daryl!" Andrea scolded him, bouncing the baby lightly on her hip to settle her. "That's not funny."

He tried to look innocent. A few members of the group snickered.

Rick came up beside her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, but even he was grinning. "You've got to admit it's a little funny," he teased her, rubbing her bicep.

He was supposed to be on _her_ side. Andrea shot him a mock wounded look, picking up the empty film canister. _Night of the Living Dead_. She should have guessed. She put it back down, wrinkling her nose in distaste as she took note of the other titles stacked beside the projector. "_Psycho_, _The Shining_, _Nightmare On Elm Street_, _The Texas Chainsaw Massacre_… Do they have anything besides horror movies?" she complained. Somehow none of them held the appeal they once had.

"There's more over here," Carl announced, sliding open a cupboard crammed with dozens of identical metal canisters. "They have some kids movies like _The Wizard of Oz_ and _Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory_." He turned back to his father. "Can we watch one tonight, Dad?" he asked, his expression pleading, regressing into the young boy he was when Andrea first met him. "For Judy," he added, composing himself into the apathetic teenager he had become of late.

Rick frowned. "We should probably try to conserve power," he said, appealing to the group. "Our first priority needs to be keeping this place heated and who knows how much longer the generator will last?"

"It might be good for morale," Hershel countered, sparking a chorus of spirited agreement from the others.

Rick looked around at the sea of eager faces. "You know what? You're right," he told him, conceding to the idea. "God knows we could all do with some fun after what we've been through. Carl, why don't you pick?" He glanced over at Andrea, giving her shoulders a gentle squeeze as he added, "But I think we can all agree, no more zombie movies."


	4. Chapter 4

_For the sake of this story, let's just say that everything happened the same way it did in the finale except Andrea managed to kill Milton before he could bite her (which is how we all know the episode should have ended)._

* * *

Chapter 4.

The lights were off in the suite but Andrea had left the bedroom door ajar for him; Rick smiled at the sight of her curled up with Judith under the blankets, reading to her in a low voice. She looked so tranquil and beautiful in the warm glow of the gas lamp that not for the first time, he found himself marvelling at the fact that he could still be so lucky after everything that had happened.

He stood there watching them for a moment, committing the scene to memory, before announcing, "Building's secure". After spending a pleasant evening lazing about eating popcorn cooked on the stove and watching old movies, the last thing any of them wanted was another nasty surprise, so he and Daryl had decided to carry out another sweep of the perimeter before retiring themselves.

At the sound of Rick's voice, Andrea shut the book, acknowledging him with a languid smile. "We were wondering where you got to."

He unclipped the holster from around his waist, placing it on the nightstand. "How is she?" he asked, approaching the bed.

"I finally got her to sleep." Andrea cupped the little girl's forehead in her palm. "I think her fever's starting to break."

A wave of gratitude flooded through Rick on hearing that they had managed to avoid another crisis. He didn't know what he would have done if Judith's illness turned out to be something more serious than a common childhood flu.

"How does a civil rights attorney get so good at soothing sick babies?" he mused, torn between admiration at how well Andrea had fared in his absence and guilt for not being there to nurse Judith through it himself. He was painfully aware of the fact that he hadn't been the most attentive father where she was concerned. Fortunately he had the proverbial village to pick up the slack.

"By having a baby sister," Andrea reminded him, shifting Judith carefully to the mattress beside her so that she could sit up. "I was twelve when Amy was born, so while you and Shane were off riding your bikes around town, doing whatever it is boys do, I was at home helping my mom change stinky diapers."

"Isn't that every little girl's dream?" he teased her, flopping onto the bed on Judith's other side. "Having a real live baby doll to play with?"

"Don't get me wrong – it was fun at first," she agreed, "but the novelty wore off pretty quickly. By the time Amy was Judy's age I was already counting down the days until I went to college, when I would finally be free of her. Be careful what you wish for, right?" she finished with a shrug that was a little too casual to be convincing.

His concern must have shown on his face because she added quickly, "You don't have to look at me like I'm gonna break every time I say her name. I'm fine, Rick, really. I have you and Judy and Carl, and I have the group. You're my family now."

Rick sighed. He wasn't ready for her to let him off the hook just yet. "It means a lot to me that you would say that, Andrea," he told her, "and I appreciate the way you've stepped up with Judy – I do – but I shouldn't have left you to take care of her today. She's not your responsibility."

Andrea looked surprised. "She's your daughter, Rick – that makes her my responsibility," she insisted and Rick couldn't help the goofy smile that spread over his features in response.

"I love you," he told her, the words bursting out of their own accord before he could check them. It wasn't something they allowed themselves to say to each other for fear of what might happen – although it was there in every touch – , but all of a sudden, he felt the overwhelming urge to make sure that she knew it.

"I love you too," she assured him, leaning over his sleeping daughter to kiss him softly. She broke it after a moment, resting her forehead against his. "Since you love me," she said, the corners of her lips curling into a playful smile, "would you mind taking Judith to her room? I'd like to be alone with you tonight."

"Why?" He punctuated the question with another leisurely kiss. "What did you have in mind?"

"Not _that_," she insisted with a husky laugh. "I wasn't completely honest with you before – there _is_ something we need to talk about."

He pulled back to study her with a frown. "That sounds ominous."

"It's not anything bad, I promise," she assured him. "I'm hoping it might even be a good thing."

"Okay," he agreed, getting up and gathering his daughter's still form in his arms. "Let me go get her settled and then you can tell me what's going on."

When Rick returned to the room, Andrea was standing at the window, watching the snow fall on the white-drenched landscape beyond the glass. He wanted to go to her, to circle her in his arms and kiss her neck, but her rigid posture, combined with the way she twisted her hands together as though she were preparing a speech kept him at a distance.

"So?" he pressed to get her attention.

"So, I think you should sit down for this," she insisted, turning back to him.

He did as she suggested, perching on the edge of the bed. "Okay, now what's this all about?"

She bit her lower lip, worrying the inside with her teeth as she considered the best way to begin. "I don't really know how to tell you this," she admitted, "so I think it's better if I just say it. I'm pregnant. My guess is around about eight weeks." The barest hint of a smile graced her features as she waited to see how he would react.

He had expected a lot of things, but this? This definitely wasn't one of them. It was like déjà vu, only this time he was fairly certain that there was no question as to the baby's paternity. "Eight weeks? So you must have known for a while?"

She winced guiltily. "Yeah. I would have told you sooner but these last few weeks haven't exactly been a picnic and after what you went through with Lori… I guess I just didn't want you to have to worry."

"This is why you weren't drinking?" he asked stupidly. It all made sense now: why she was so eager to set up camp here, why she volunteered to stay behind with Judy instead of helping Daryl clear the place of walkers, why she turned down that two hundred dollar bottle of wine on their first night in this place.

She nodded. "Are you going to say something?"

He shook his head obstinately, refusing to believe that any of it could be true. "This is a joke, right? You can't be serious."

"Why would I joke about something like that?" she asked sharply, her smile fading when she realised he wasn't going to give her the response she was hoping for.

She sat down beside him, taking his hand in both of hers. "Look, I know this is a shock. It was a shock for me too. I never thought I'd be having a baby this close to forty, much less in the middle of an apocalypse, but sometimes the best things in life are the ones we don't plan. I didn't plan to fall in love with you."

"You're happy about this?" he asked incredulously. This wasn't a blessing in disguise – this was a disaster. How could she not see that?

"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be? Because there are walkers out there? That's all the more reason for us to do this, Rick. Surviving isn't just about not dying – it's about making sure the human race doesn't end with us. But as long as we are alive, what's wrong with wanting a life – a real life? Isn't that why we're together?"

Once he would have agreed, but the time for white picket fences and minivans and barbeques with the neighbours was over. "The world doesn't work like that anymore. You know that. Nothing will ever be how it was."

"You want to tell that to Carl? Or Judy? That this… freak show… is all she'll ever know? If that's really how you feel then why did you stop Lori from taking those pills?"

As much as he loved Judith, there were moments when he still asked himself the same question. If he hadn't talked Lori out of it then she might still be alive and his son wouldn't have had to shoot his own mother. "If I knew then what I know now…"

"You would've what?" Andrea demanded, her expression contorting into a look of disgust. "Let her abort your daughter?" Her hand flew protectively to her stomach. "Is that what you want me to do? Get rid of this baby because the timing is inconvenient?"

"Of course not," he insisted, cringing at how callous it sounded when she phrased it that way. If the situation were different, he would have happily welcomed another child into the family they were building. "But what kind of life do you honestly think we could we give it?"

"The same kind of life we're giving your other children."

"You really want to bring another child into _this_?" He gestured at the window for emphasis. Everything was so calm here that it was easy to forget what it was really like out there. "The same world you were ready to opt out of yourself?"

She let out a heavy sigh. "That would've been a mistake, Rick. I get that now. I was lonely and grieving and I saw a way out of the pain, but that was a long time ago. My feelings have changed since then. I don't want to die anymore."

"Then can't you see that going ahead with this pregnancy would be just as big of a mistake?" he insisted, seizing on this point. "Have you even considered how dangerous it would be if something went wrong? The baby could die. You could die. Are you really prepared to gamble with your life like that?" It didn't matter if she was because he wasn't going to let her. He refused to be responsible for the death of another woman he loved. He could live without another baby; what he couldn't live without was her. "We'll talk to Hershel, ask him to help us figure something out."

She jumped up, her eyes flashing with anger, and he could see that she was fighting back tears. "You know what, Rick? Forget it. I'll handle it on my own."

She was so goddamned stubborn, so determined to prove that she didn't need him or anyone else… "So that's it? You've decided? You're just gonna have this baby alone, regardless of what I want? How would that even work?" They were part of the same small group. Everything they did impacted on each other. There was no way that she could give birth or raise a child without involving him – at least not while he had to see her every day.

"I could leave," she countered as though reading his mind. "I've survived without you before."

"And how did that work out for you?" he retorted before he could stop himself. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. It was a low blow – bringing up that sordid chapter in their history – and they both knew it.

The last thing he wanted to do tonight was fight with her but she pushed his buttons in a way that no woman ever had before. Throughout their marriage, he'd dealt with Lori's anger by shutting down, shutting her out, but that tactic never seemed to work with Andrea. Passive-aggression just wasn't her style. On the positive side, it meant that he rarely had to waste time trying to figure out what he'd done to piss her off because she usually came straight out and told him.

She shook her head, gaping at him in horror. "How could you even say that after what he…? You can be a real asshole sometimes, you know that?"

"Andrea…" he began, at loss for how to fix it the gulf that was rapidly forming between them. They'd had disagreements before, but never like this. Then again, he couldn't see that there was a compromise to be had here. "Baby, I'm sorry," he tried again, reaching for her but she jerked her body away, recoiling from him for the first time in recent memory.

"Don't touch me." She snatched her pillow and the spare blanket off of the bed and started towards the door.

"Where are you going?" he insisted, scurrying after her. "It's the middle of the night." Surely she wasn't serious about leaving? At least not right now? It wasn't safe for her to be out there alone – especially in her condition.

He breathed an internal sigh of relief when she tossed back over her shoulder, "To sleep on the couch. I can't even stand to look at you right now."

"Andrea, stop," he begged wearily, trying to block her exit. "Please just stay and let's talk about this, okay?"

She pushed past him into the hall and when he tried to follow she slammed the door in his face, leaving him to wonder how things could turn to shit so quickly.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5.

When Rick woke the next morning, Andrea was gone. But it wasn't her absence that disturbed him: it was that her weapons, from her rifle to the small knife she carried in her pocket, were gone as well.

She couldn't have got too far, he reasoned with himself to lessen his panic, because the knapsack that held her clothes and the rest of her belongings was still in the corner next to his and she wouldn't have left anything behind if she had no intention of coming back.

That didn't stop him from accosting Michonne outside the bathroom. He figured that if she told anyone where she was going, it would be her best friend."Have you seen Andrea?" he asked her, trying to make the question seem casual, even though his heart was pounding.

"Trouble in paradise?" Michonne teased him with a sympathetic smile. "You know, Tyreese and I heard you two arguing last night. Sounded pretty bad. No wonder she's avoiding you."

Judging by her words, she had no clue what the fight was about. "You mean she hasn't talked to you about it?" he pressed, surprised that Andrea hadn't divulged the news of her pregnancy. As far as he could tell, he was the only one besides her who knew.

"I haven't spoken to her since we said we said goodnight," Michonne admitted, her brow furrowing with concern. "Why? Is she okay?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," he told her.

Carl hadn't seen her either, or Carol, or Daryl, or anyone else for that matter. The more he searched, the more apparent it became that she wasn't anywhere in the lodge or out in the grounds: a fact confirmed by the discovery that one of the cars was missing.

Rick stood in the lot staring, dumbfounded, at the space where he had watched Andrea park it just a few days before, unable to comprehend what could have possessed her to leave the safety of the mountain. He couldn't imagine where she would have gone. There was nothing but snow around them for miles, the nearest town at least an hour away.

Finding her would be like a needle in a haystack, but he couldn't just sit around and wait for her to return; he was about to go inside and ask Carol to watch the baby so that he could go after her when he heard the unmistakable crunch of tyres on gravel.

"Who is it, Dad?" Carl asked, appearing beside him with Judith and it occurred to Rick that he must have followed him out. "Is it Andrea?"

"Stay here." Rick drew his pistol but kept it at his side as he went to meet the car, waiting until he got a good look at the driver before he returned it to its holster.

"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded when the door opened and Andrea stepped out, torn between the conflicting urges to hug her and shake her.

She shrugged, retrieving her rifle from the passenger seat. "I needed some time to clear my head," she explained, throwing the strap over her shoulder.

"So you went for a drive? Alone?" He'd known from the moment they met, when she shoved a gun in his face, that she was prone to reckless behaviour, but this had to take the cake.

"I wasn't exactly alone," she reminded him, shooting him a dark look as she moved around to open the trunk.

She lifted the lid and his eyes were drawn to a splatter of blood on the sleeve of her coat. She didn't appear hurt, so he was fairly confident that it wasn't hers. "Did you see any walkers?"

"A couple," she replied nonchalantly, pulling out assorted bags and boxes and depositing them into the snow as though she'd just returned from a Saturday afternoon trip to the grocery store.

He couldn't believe that she didn't see anything wrong with what she'd done. "Jesus, Andrea. It was only a couple this time, but what if you'd run into a herd? Or some people who wanted to hurt you? What if you'd gotten into an accident? Anything could've happened to you or…" His eyes darted pointedly to her stomach.

"Then you'd have one less problem to solve," she retorted, closing the lid.

She tried to move past him, but Rick grabbed her arm, lowering his voice as he said, "That's a little harsh, don't you think?"

She raised her chin, glowering at him in defiance. "Is it? You made your feelings pretty clear."

Rick could feel his son watching them. "Carl, would you mind taking your sister inside? I need to talk to Andrea alone."

For a moment it looked like his son might refuse, then without another word, he disappeared back into the lodge.

Andrea slid a small package from the inside pocket of her coat and pressed it into Rick's chest. "Here."

"What is it?" he asked, eyeing it with a mixture of confusion and suspicion. Somehow he doubted that it was a token of her affection.

"Medicine for Judith."

He opened the bag. Inside was a bottle of Children's Tylenol. "You went to a drug store?"

"Among other places. I haven't changed my mind, if that's what you're thinking," she added quickly, and he couldn't deny that some part of him was hoping that that was what her little road trip was about. Things would be so much simpler if she came to that decision herself, of her own free will, instead of him having to strongarm her into doing something that neither of them was comfortable with.

She picked up a cardboard box and started walking towards the lodge. "You shouldn't be carrying that," he told her.

She rolled her eyes, but allowed him to take it from her. "You seem to have a lot of opinions on what I should and shouldn't be doing."

"Would you stop that?" he complained, rounding on her.

"Stop what?"

"Stop punishing me."

"I'm not punishing you, Rick," she corrected him, softening, and she looked so sad all of a sudden that he almost wished she would go back to being mad at him. "I just don't know what else there is to say. You have to admit, we're kind of at an impasse here."

"So how about instead of saying something you let me speak?" he insisted.

She folded her arms. "Okay, fine," she told him begrudgingly.

He helped her bring the rest of the stuff inside, and then he led her through to the lounge where they could sit down.

Instead of taking the spot beside him on the couch, she chose an armchair a few feet away, perching on the edge of the cushion as though she were preparing to flee.

"This isn't about us or me not wanting the baby," he assured her, choosing his words carefully.

"Then what is it about?"

"Lori."

She sucked in a sharp breath. "You said…"

"I know. And I meant it. Do I miss her sometimes? Yes. She was my wife. Am I sorry that she died? Of course. We had children together. But do I wish that she was here right now instead of you? Absolutely not. I love you, Andrea, and the last woman I loved died giving birth to our child. I just... I can't go through that again," he finished.

He watched the anger melt from her expression. "So that's it? You're afraid that if we do this, you'll lose me? Rick," she breathed, leaning forward to place a hand on his thigh. "What happened to Lori was tragic, but that was Lori. Just because she died in childbirth, doesn't mean that I will."

"But you could, and that's what scares me."

"Millions of babies were born before the advent of modern medicine," she reminded him, "and yet somehow the human race survived. This doesn't have to be a death sentence, Rick. But if it is… I'd rather die a natural death bringing new life into the world than end up like Amy.

"You know I love Judy and Carl, but this baby is my blood. This is my chance to leave something behind – proof that I was here, that my life mattered. That something good can still come from all the shit that I've been through. Isn't that why we have children? To carry on for us after we're gone?"

She must have been a damn good lawyer, he decided, because she had a way of presenting things that made it impossible to argue with her. "This is really what you want?" he checked.

She squeezed his leg. "Yeah. It is. Please tell me you understand."

"I wish I didn't," he confessed, "but I do." She deserved to have a piece of her that would live on after her death, regardless of whether it took place in seven months or seventy years.

"Does that mean I have your support?" she asked hopefully.

He placed his hand over hers. "Always."

Tears welled in her eyes, but this time, she was smiling. "Thank you," she whispered, throwing her arms around him, and for a long time they just held each other in silence.

"So is this how it's gonna be from now on?" he teased her when they finally let go. "We have a fight and you run off?"

She coloured slightly, clearly embarrassed. "You're right. It was stupid. It was just me for so long – I guess I'm still adjusting to being part of a family again."

"You're damn right it was stupid. I could've lost you. _Both_ of you," he added meaningfully, in case she still doubted his commitment. It might not be what he would have chosen, but she had to know that he was with her one hundred per cent.

"But you didn't," she told him, hugging him again.

"No, I didn't," he agreed.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6.

The weeks went by without incident as they settled into their new home. Slowly, everyone began to spread out through the lodge, Carl and Judith – who had recovered from her illness with the help of the medicine Andrea brought back for her – moving into their own rooms after Tyreese and Michonne claimed a suite on the floor above theirs.

One night, as they were getting ready for bed, Andrea caught Rick staring at her from where he was seated on the edge of the mattress.

"What?" she asked self-consciously, pulling on one of his old shirts. She tried to ignore him, focusing on fastening each of the buttons, but she could still feel him watching her. "Something you wanna say?"

His only response was to steer her silently over to the full-length mirror on the back of the door, lifting the hem of her shirt to reveal the almost imperceptible curve that had replaced her usually flat abs.

To the untrained eye, it would just look like she'd started to let herself go while they'd been at the lodge. "Oh," she breathed, running her hand over it, wondering why she hadn't noticed the change herself. It seemed so obvious now that he'd pointed it out. "Wow. I guess there's really a baby in there."

"That's generally what 'pregnant' means," he teased her. He allowed her shirt to fall back into place, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind. "You must be pretty close the end of your first trimester?"

"Second," she corrected him, leaning back into his chest. She was shorter than him, so that if she bent her knees slightly, her head fit perfectly into the space beneath his chin. "Thirteen weeks as of yesterday, so I'm in my second trimester now."

"That's traditionally about the time we'd start telling people," he remarked, catching her eye in the mirror.

She regarded him with a wry smile. "I think we can agree there's nothing traditional about this situation."

In the old days, she would have been on the phone to her mother or Amy by now, she thought wistfully. Her mom would have been thrilled. She was always hinting that she wished Andrea would find someone to settle down with and give her a grandchild. And every time, Andrea would joke that that was why she'd had Amy: to cover her bases.

"You don't think they have a right to know?" Rick was saying. "This is going to affect them too."

"It's not that," she assured him. She could never be ashamed of what they were doing. "I just don't want to be treated differently. I'm not ready to be the fragile pregnant lady everybody feels like they need to coddle."

He chuckled softly. "No one's going to coddle you, Andrea, believe me. They know you'd shoot them if they tried."

"You're damn right I would," she agreed. She had always prided herself on being a valuable member of the group. That wasn't going to change now just because she was pregnant.

"We don't have to make any announcements yet," he said, all seriousness again, "but I think we should at least tell Hershel. He handled all of Lori's prenatal care – he can do the same for you."

"A vet for an OBGYN," she mused with an ironic smile. "As if I don't feel like enough of a heifer already."

He chuckled again. "You are not a heifer," he assured her. "You're one of the most beautiful women I've ever met."

She laughed disbelievingly. "Tell me that again in six months."

He pressed a lingering kiss into her hair. "I will."

"You are such a cheeseball," she told him, rolling her eyes, but she couldn't help grinning.

"And you need to learn how to take a compliment," he insisted. "Promise me you'll let Hershel check you out. I'd feel a lot better about this pregnancy if someone could tell me that everything is going smoothly."

In truth, she would too. "Okay."

"Okay?" he repeated, clearly taken aback. "You're not gonna try to fight me on this?"

She shook her head. "I know you still have your doubts, but I feel like we've been given this incredible gift here. The last thing I want to do is jeopardise that."

He caught her eye again, studying her expression in amazement. "You really are happy about this, aren't you?" he said, more of a statement than a question.

"Yeah." She grinned at him in the mirror. "Crazy, huh?"

He tightened his grip on her, smiling back. "Maybe just a little."

* * *

"You trying to repopulate the earth with Grimeses, son?" Hershel teased Rick the next morning when they shared their news.

Rick laughed good-naturedly. "This will be the last one, I promise."

"Are you sure about that?" Andrea goaded him. "This place has plenty of bedrooms."

"You know, I used to spay my own cattle," Hershel informed Rick, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

Rick shuddered, glancing helplessly at Andrea, who was trying to look sympathetic but failing dismally.

"Oh my God, your face," was all she managed to say between bouts of laughter.

Rick was tempted to hover while Hershel examined her, but at her insistence, he left the bedroom to give them some privacy.

"There needs to be some mystery in our relationship," she told him; he remembered Lori saying something similar when she was pregnant with Carl. They'd invited him back in for the sonogram, but just like when Lori was carrying Judith, that was something he and Andrea were going to have to learn to live without.

"So?" he asked impatiently when she joined him out on the deck where he was watching Carl and Beth play with Judith, teaching her how to make snow angels. The sight of his son acting like a kid again warmed his heart; so did seeing his daughter enjoy such a normal childhood experience – the first of many, he hoped, for her and her soon-to-be younger sibling.

"So, it's official," Andrea told him. "I'm healthy as a horse – that's probably a bad choice of words – and so is Rick junior here." She patted her belly, concealed inside her bulky coat, fondly.

"It's a boy?" Rick asked, locking on to the nickname.

She laughed. "No. Well, maybe. I guess we won't know until it's born."

"Right," he agreed, feeling foolish for entertaining the notion that anyone could tell without the proper equipment. Of course there was no way of finding out until then. "I'm just glad everything is okay."

"Me too." She braced her rifle against the post and leant on the railing beside him, her eyes performing a quick, habitual sweep of the grounds for walkers before they settled on the children. Her expression softened into an affectionate smile as she watched them frolic in the snow. "They look so happy."

"That's not really in the running, is it? Rick junior?" Rick asked her. "That whole tradition always seemed kind of pompous to me."

"Oh, I agree," she told him. "You don't see many girls walking around with their mothers' names." She turned to face him, looking shy all of a sudden. "I know it's a little early to be talking about names, but while we're on the subject, I've been thinking – if it's a girl, it would mean a lot to me if we could call her Amy."

"Whatever you want," he agreed. It was as good a name as any, so if it made her happy, he was all for the idea.

"Really?"

"Sure. I got to name Carl, Carl got to name Judith, so that makes it your turn to choose."

She beamed at him, taking his face in her gloved hands and rewarding him with a tender kiss. "I guess I better start making a list of boys' names too then," she said when she released him.

She sighed, staring out across the slopes sadly. "I wish there was some way I could tell her," she admitted. "She would've been so excited. She begged me for years to make her an aunt."

"Why didn't you?" he asked curiously. "Have kids before, I mean. You must've thought about it."

"I don't know," she confessed. "I always wanted to – I meant to – but I could never seem to find the right time, or the right guy. It's still not the right time, but it looks like I finally found the right guy."

She was looking at him again, her eyes filled with such open adoration that not for the first time, Rick wondered what he could have possibly done to deserve it; he pulled her close, kissing her with as much passion as he could muster…

…Until he felt something slam into his back.

"Gross, Dad! Get a room!" his son's voice yelled.

They broke apart, turning to see that he and Beth had stopped what they were doing and were staring at them, one smiling while the other looked mortified at witnessing his father making out with his girlfriend.

Andrea was down the steps in an instant, scooping up snow and lobbing it at Carl with an impish grin. It hit him in the shoulder, spraying his face with ice.

He tried to retaliate, but she ducked behind Rick, allowing his son's snowball to smack him square in the chest.

"Hey!" Carl protested. "That's cheating!"

Rick glanced back at Andrea in amusement, brushing the snow from his jacket. "What're you doing?"

"Using you as a shield," she explained nonchalantly, her face a picture of innocence. "I'm carrying your child, Rick – the least you can do is protect me from a few measly snowballs."

She was so smug about her apparent immunity that when she dropped her guard, crouching to make another projectile to launch at Carl, Rick grabbed a fistful of snow and threw it down the back of her shirt.

She shrieked loudly, trying to shake it out as she scrambled to her feet. "You are going to pay for that, Grimes!" she cried, but they were both laughing as she chased him from one end of the garden to the other, trying to catch him long enough to enact her revenge.

He was too fast for her, though, and soon they were both out of breath.

"Truce?" she said finally, holding her hand out to him.

Deciding that they'd both had enough, Rick moved to accept it. But before they could shake on it, she produced a handful of snow from behind her back and deposited it down the front of his jeans.

"I can't believe you just did that," he gasped as the cold seeped into his most sensitive areas.

Behind him, he could hear Carl guffawing. Adding insult to injury, Judith joined in, though Rick wasn't sure she even knew what they were laughing at.

Andrea shrugged, walking back towards the lodge. "Payback is a bitch."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7.

Andrea was sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of the fireplace when Rick came in from settling Judith, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, balancing a steaming mug on her thigh.

"How's your frostbite?" she asked him, tearing her gaze from the fire, the corners of her lips twitching with suppressed glee.

He shot her a sullen look. He still hadn't forgiven her for pulling such a dirty trick on him, especially in front of Carl, who hadn't let him live it down all day.

"Oh, quit being such a baby, Rick," she scoffed. "It's not that bad."

"That's easy for you to say – you're not a guy," he complained.

"Which is something you should be glad for," she told him.

She set her mug on the hearth and grabbed his wrist, pulling him down onto the rug with her. "In fact, I bet I can think of a way to make you forget all about it," she purred against his ear, working his top button free.

And she was right: by the time she was through with him, he couldn't remember why he had ever been mad at her.

Lying with her under the blanket, watching the shadows cast by the flames dance over her profile, he confessed, "This has always been kind of a fantasy of mine – making love to a beautiful woman in front of roaring fire." He was propped on one elbow behind her, his other arm draped loosely around her waist; he could feel the gentle swell of her belly beneath his hand, but in that moment, he wasn't concerned about what it meant. It was hard to be too anxious about the future when he was so content in the present.

"When you say it like that, you make it sound like we're in a cheesy eighties movie," she said, turning her head to look at him.

He let out an involuntary chuckle at the memories this conjured up, of soft lighting and saxophones. "You must have some cheesy fantasies of your own," he insisted.

"Right now I can't think of anything that doesn't involve food," she admitted.

"You can't possibly be hungry again," he teased her. "We just ate."

"Well I obviously didn't eat enough because I'm starving," she complained. She twisted around in his arms, trailing a finger seductively down his chest. "So, why don't you go get me a snack, and then when you come back, we can pick up where we left off."

* * *

Despite her promise, Andrea found herself struggling to stay awake as she waited for Rick to return. She considered shifting from the floor to the bed in case she did fall asleep, but she was so relaxed and sated that she couldn't muster up the energy to move.

She perked up when he reappeared, can in hand, reaching for it eagerly until she saw the label. "Freeze dried green beans? What kind of a snack is that?" They definitely weren't on the list of foods she'd been craving.

He produced a can opener and a fork from his breast pocket, handing them both to her. "Sorry, best I could do. There wasn't a lot left to choose from. It was either that or beets."

"What about all that stuff I brought back?" She was sure that there had been some processed crap like cookies and potato chips in there.

"Most of it's gone." He shrugged apologetically. "At least those will be good for the baby, right?"

She sighed begrudgingly, setting about removing the lid of the can. "We really need to go on another supply run." Her old clothes wouldn't fit her for much longer and she could use a better bra.

"Especially with the way you've been eating," he teased her gently, sitting back down beside her, and it took her a moment to realise he was still talking about the supply run.

She slapped his arm lightly. "Hey."

"I'm going to look for a map or a phone book tomorrow, see if there are any malls we can hit," he told her. "With the baby coming, it might not be a bad idea to start stocking up on things like diapers and formula now, just in case we can't find them later. I don't want to get caught unprepared like we were last time."

"Formula?" she repeated, her heart sinking. She shoved the can aside, her appetite gone. "Rick, this isn't like when Judy was born. This baby is going to have a mother. It doesn't need formula because I'm going to be here to feed it."

"You know, Lori thought the same thing," he reminded her, "and where is she now? We were lucky we didn't lose Judith too. I'm just trying to be realistic here, Andrea. One of us has to be."

She was getting tired of having the same old argument with him day in day out. She drew the blanket around her and stood up. "If you're that sure I'm gonna die then you might as well start planning my funeral now," she snapped, stalking over to the dresser. She yanked open the top drawer and pulled on the first things she found that she knew still fit: a pair of sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt.

"You think I want to bury you?" Rick retorted, stepping between her and the door. "That I don't lie awake at night worrying about how this is all gonna turn out? Because I do. All I want – all I've ever wanted – is to keep you safe and it kills me that I can't. That I'm just supposed to stand back and watch while you put your life in danger. I never asked for this. I'm not even sure I want it." He walked away from her then, over to the window, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his index finger.

He was talking about the baby, she realised, a sick feeling creeping into the pit of her stomach. He didn't want it, at least not like she did.

She wished that she could find it in herself to hate him for this admission, that she could write him off as cold and uncaring, but there was a rawness about him that made it difficult for her to hold onto her earlier anger.

She knew that it wasn't really her or their child that he was lashing out against: it was this godforsaken world. It had taken too much from him – from all of them – already. He just didn't want to lose anything else.

She moved over to where he was standing, hugging him from behind. "You're not the only one who's scared," she confessed. "But it's going to be okay."

"You don't know that."

"No, but I believe it. I have to," she told him, resting her head against him, her cheek pressed to his shoulder blade. "I'll tell you what else I believe – in a few months, Hershel is going to hand you your new son or daughter and you are going to wonder what all the fuss was about. And when that day comes, I'm going to be there to say 'I told you so'."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8.

"Be a good girl for Aunt Carol," Andrea whispered to Judith, transferring her into her friend's arms.

"She'll be fine," Carol assured her, resettling the little girl on her own hip. "Won't you, Judy?"

Judith squirmed in her grasp, reaching both arms out for Andrea. "Mamamama!" she wailed and Andrea's heart almost stopped.

"Did she just say…?"

"All babies make that sound," Carol told her, but this did nothing to appease the guilt that flooded through Andrea as Judith's tear-filled brown eyes locked pitifully onto her own.

As much as it shamed her to admit it, it was easy to leave her because she wasn't really hers; she tried to imagine herself foisting her own baby on Carol while she headed out on some dangerous mission with Michonne and the boys, and realised that she had no idea how she was going to reconcile Andrea the warrior with Andrea the mother, or if that was even possible. She and Rick had been so focused on making it through the pregnancy and birth that they had never gotten around to discussing what they would do afterwards. Would he expect her to be a stay at home mom – or whatever the equivalent was these days – like Lori? Or would he continue to believe that her particular brand of skills were better utilised elsewhere?

"Yo, Andrea! You coming or what?" Daryl called across the parking lot, hopping into the passenger seat of the first car. They had decided to take two vehicles so that they could carry more back. The third would remain at the lodge, just in case.

Andrea looked from him to Judith and back again. If she was going, then she needed to hurry up. She double-checked that the magazine in her rifle was full, patting her gun belt to make sure she had a spare handy. She doubted she would need it, but if there was one thing this world had taught her, it was that you should be prepared for anything.

"I'll bring you back something new to play with," she promised Judith to make herself feel better about abandoning her, kissing the top of her dark head.

"Say 'bye-bye'," Carol told the little girl, waving to Andrea as she shouldered her rifle and headed over to meet the others.

Andrea smiled when Judith parroted the gesture, flapping her tiny hand open and shut. "Bye, Judy."

"What are you doing?" Rick asked when he saw her approaching, dragging her across the lot to a place where they could talk without being overheard.

Michonne eyed them curiously as she climbed into the other car with Tyreese. "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm coming with you."

"Andrea…"

"Rick," she said in the same exasperated tone. "It's a supply run, just like the hundreds of others I've been on. Have you forgotten how we met?"

"That was before you were pregnant."

"I was pregnant last time," she reminded him.

"And you were very lucky nothing happened," he insisted.

"Come on, Rick, you have to give me more credit than that." She might have been pregnant, but that hadn't stopped her from killing three walkers without even breaking much of a sweat. "I get that you're worried – you've made that abundantly clear – but you can't confine me to the lodge for the next six months or we'll both go crazy. Besides," she couldn't resist adding, "I'm the best shot you have. Who's gonna cover your asses if I'm not there?"

Her innate accuracy with a firearm made her one of the group's most valuable players; Daryl was a genius with a crossbow, and Michonne and Tyreese were both forces to be reckoned with in close combat, but none of them could do what she did, Rick included. Without her, they were down their first line of defence.

She watched the muscles in his jaw clench as he tried to think of a fresh counterargument: one that didn't make him sound like a broken record. "I don't like it," he told her finally, coming up empty.

"I'm not asking you to," she assured him, "but you can't deny that you need me."

He sighed, throwing his hands up in defeat. "Okay," he agreed, "but I'm begging you not to make me regret this."

* * *

No one wanted to leave the sanctuary of the lodge overnight, so they found a Wal-Mart within a day's journey, where if fortune was kind, they could stock up on enough necessities to last them the rest of the winter.

The store had been looted long before they got there. Unsurprisingly, the gun department was the hardest hit. The racks lining the walls were empty and only a few stray boxes of ammo remained. Andrea was pleased to see that this included a handful of rifle cartridges and some 9mm calibre bullets that could be distributed among those of them carrying pistols; she gathered these up and stored them safely inside her duffel bag.

Their next stop was the food aisles, where they filled two shopping carts with non-perishables: cans of soup and spaghetti, vegetables and meat; boxes of cereal and crackers; bags of pasta and rice; cartons of long-life milk, fruit cups, and jars of peanut butter and pasta sauce – anything they could find that was good for at least a few more months.

While the men went out to the parking lot to load up the trunks, Andrea fished the list she'd written the night before out of her pocket. After all, that was the reason she'd come.

Michonne was sitting on the checkout counter, chewing on one of the candy bars. "Where are you going?" she asked when Andrea walked by her.

"I just need to get a couple of things," Andrea told her, waving her off when it looked like she might try to follow her. "I'll only be a few minutes."

After a lot of soul-searching, she had decided that Rick was right about the formula: if for some reason she wasn't able to breastfeed, she wanted to be sure that her baby wouldn't starve. She pulled a few of cans from the shelf and shoved them into her bag, along with a couple of bottles. On top of these, she added several packets of cloth diapers, some newborn socks and onesies – all white, yellow or pastel green since she didn't know if she was having a boy or a girl –, a sling to carry the baby in, and a couple of warm blankets. For herself, she threw in a breast pump, some nursing pads and a few new items of clothing that she hoped would last her for the duration of her pregnancy.

As she was leaving to rejoin the others, her eyes landed on a display of stuffed bears. Remembering her promise to Judith, she picked one up, fingering the soft material. It reminded her of one she'd had herself as a child. She grabbed a second one for the baby, slipping them both into her bag.

She was just zipping it back up when she heard a voice cry, "Andrea! Look out!"

She whirled around to find herself face to face with a female walker in an ugly blue uniform. "Shit."

There was no time to shoot it; she snatched a box cutter from on top of a pile of cartons, catching the walker-woman by the hair and driving the blade through its eye socket. It stopped struggling then, reverting back to the corpse that it was, and she threw it away from her in disgust.

She could feel the blood roaring in her ears as adrenaline coursed through her. I almost died, she thought, staring at the walker that lay dead at her feet, cursing herself for allowing herself to get so distracted that she forget where she was.

_We_ almost died, she corrected herself, fighting the urge to be sick. She wondered idly if the child in her womb would have turned too, then decided that that wasn't a place she was willing to let her mind go.

"Are you okay?" the same deep voice asked her.

She glanced up. Michonne was standing ten places in front of her, sword hanging limply at her side, looking more shaken than Andrea has ever seen her.

"Yeah," Andrea managed to gasp. "Thanks to you." She looked at the walker again. "But do you think you can do me a favour and not mention this to Rick?" She didn't want him to know how close his nightmare came to becoming a reality.

"I won't if you promise to be more careful next time," Michonne agreed, sheathing her sword. She frowned. "What are you doing all the way over here in the baby department anyway? Does Judith need something?"

"Not Judith."

Michonne studied her with that almost clairvoyant look she had. "You're pregnant."

Andrea wasn't sure how she knew, but she did. She never had been able to hide anything from her best friend for long. She nodded.

"Does Rick know?"

"Of course. He was the first person I told. He wasn't exactly overjoyed at first, which is understandable considering what happened to Lori, but I think he's coming around."

At least she hoped he was. He had been very sweet and attentive since the night he shocked them both with his confession, inquiring about her symptoms, and kissing her growing belly almost tentatively when they made love. He hadn't apologised for what he said – not that she really expected him to – but she figured that was his way of showing her that however complicated his feelings about her pregnancy were, he was still trying.

"You're keeping it, then?" Andrea could hear the disapproval in her friend's tone.

"Don't look at me like that, Mich," she complained.

"How am I looking at you?"

"Like you just found out I have six months to live."

"You might as well."

Not her too. Andrea rolled her eyes. "It's a baby, not a tumour." Women got pregnant and gave birth all the time, and so far Lori was the only one she'd known who had died that way. "Look, I don't expect you to understand, or agree, but this is what I want. I'm happy, Mich. Do you think maybe you could just be happy for me too?"

Michonne was quiet as she mulled this over. "For the record, I still think you're insane," she said after a moment.

"You and Rick should start a club," Andrea joked to ease some of the tension. "So is that a 'yes'?"

"Yes," Michonne agreed. "On one condition."

"What's that?" Andrea asked warily.

Michonne grinned. "I call dibs on godmother."

* * *

_I've noticed that the post-finale boom in Rick/Andrea fics has slowed right down now. I'm curious - are there many people still reading/writing about them or is everyone starting to move on?_


	9. Chapter 9

_Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer my question. I'm so glad to hear that people are still reading! To Guest 5/31/13, who was too cowardly to login, all I can say is I didn't invent this ship, so if you don't like it, __take it up with Robert Kirkman..._

* * *

Chapter 9.

They rationed the food as best they could, indulging only twice, on Christmas and New Years' Eve, when they had feasted on canned turkey and ham in the shadow of a seven foot fir tree cut from the grounds, but by late February, supplies were running low again. Reluctant to risk another trip into town, at least until they were left with no other choice, Rick had taken advantage of the warmer weather, leading a small group consisting of himself, Daryl, Tyreese and Michonne down the mountain to hunt. Carl assumed Andrea's usual spot on what Daryl jokingly called 'The A-Team', while Andrea, who was quickly approaching the end of her second trimester, stayed behind at the lodge.

"You were right – I never should've come," she had told Rick on the drive home from raiding the Wal-Mart. They were alone in the car; Daryl was riding back with Tyreese and Michonne.

She could see that he was surprised. "What brought this on?" he asked, taking his eyes off the road to study her. "Did something happen?" His gaze darted from her face, down to her neck and beyond, mentally checking her for scratches or bites.

To this day, she still hadn't told him the truth. "No, but it could have," she lied, haunted by the memory of how close she'd come to being walker chow right there in the middle of the baby department. She'd had near misses before, they all had, but it was different now. She was different. She didn't care about herself – death no longer scared her the way it once had –, but she couldn't bear the thought of any harm coming to the tiny life that was slowly unfurling inside of her.

That was how, on this beautiful almost-spring day, she found herself holed up in the common room instead of traipsing through the woods with her rifle, helping Carol and Beth with the mending while Judith played on a blanket at her feet. Hershel was reading in an armchair facing the window that overlooked the slopes, leaving only Glenn and Maggie unaccounted for.

Which meant they were probably off canoodling somewhere, Andrea thought enviously. With two kids and a third on the way, not to mention a whole group looking to Rick for leadership, the chances of them sneaking off for a nooner were basically zilch. A shame really, considering how difficult it had become for her to keep her hands off him of late.

"How are you feeling, Andrea?" Carol asked her without looking up from the pair of Daryl's jeans she was patching.

After breaking the news to his children individually (at eighteen months old, Judith had barely reacted, while Carl had expressed similar concerns to his father), Rick and Andrea had announced her pregnancy to the others over dinner to a chorus of congratulatory hugs from the women, and back-slaps and jests from the men.

"You dog," Glenn had teased Rick, causing him to blush furiously.

To his credit, Rick hadn't let on that he was anything less than ecstatic about the impending birth of their so-called bundle of joy, even though when Andrea finally mustered up the courage to ask him if he meant what he said about not wanting it, he just shook his head grimly and admitted, "I don't know".

It was a better answer than she was expecting, but still, she hadn't asked him again.

Back in the present, Andrea replied: "Did you ever see that movie _Fantasia_?" She was pretty sure it was in one of those canisters in the media room.

"The one with Mickey Mouse," Beth agreed.

Carol chuckled. "Sophia was terrified of all those mops," she explained. "I had to turn it off and pretend that was the end."

Andrea laid a hand on her arm and Carol flashed her a stoic smile. "What about it?"

"Remember the part with the dancing hippo?"

They nodded.

"Like that," Andrea finished, rubbing her swollen belly affectionately, and they both laughed.

"Don't be ridiculous," Carol scoffed. "You look amazing. You can't even tell you're pregnant from behind."

"My ass would beg to differ," Andrea objected, but in truth, she had never been so happy to put on weight, because each pound she gained was proof that her baby was not only alive, but thriving in spite of the long odds against it.

"Have you felt it kick?" Beth asked her.

"Not yet." At twenty-two weeks, Andrea still hadn't felt any discernable movement other than the occasional flutter. She was looking forward to the day when it was distinct enough that she could share it with Rick; if that didn't melt the ice around his heart, nothing would.

She turned to Carol. "Do you think I should?" Hershel had tried to reassure her that it was nothing to worry about, but then he had never been pregnant himself, so how would he know?

"Not necessarily. Some babies are just lazy. I had to poke Sophia to make sure she was still alive."

From the little she knew of Carol's history, Andrea sensed that there was more to that story but decided not to probe into it.

"You're so lucky to be pregnant," Beth told her, lowering her voice, presumably so that her father didn't hear. "I can't wait to have a baby of my own."

"That won't be for a few more years, I hope," Andrea said, affecting a suitably stern look. There wasn't an abundance of young, single men in their group and she was pretty sure Rick would have a stroke if his son fathered a child any time in the next decade. Hershel, meanwhile, would probably kill Carl, and maybe even Rick too.

"Oh, no," Beth assured her quickly. "I want to get married first." Then, seeming to realise how unlikely that was to happen: "Or at least engaged like Glenn and Maggie."

"Your time will come," Carol told her kindly. "And when it does, I hope you choose a better man than I did."

Tired of being ignored, Judith flung the block she was holding away. It hit the leg of an end table with a soft thud, causing all three of them to look down at her. She seemed to have lost interest in whatever game she was playing, getting up off the blanket and toddling over to where Andrea was sitting.

These days her vocabulary consisted of close to two dozen words, mostly names, or her version of them. Dad, Car, Caro, Bet… Andrea's own name had been shortened to Andie, something no one but Amy had called her since she was a kid.

Judith scrambled up onto the couch beside her. "Andie," she chirruped in her bossy little voice, tugging on Andrea's shirt to make sure she had her undivided attention. She pointed to the window. "Out."

"You want to go outside?" Andrea asked her.

She nodded, bouncing excitedly on the seat cushion.

"But all your toys are in here."

"Out," Judith repeated resolutely, standing there, looking down at her with a disapproving frown that reminded Andrea eerily of Lori. "Judy out."

After being cooped up inside all morning, Andrea decided that she wouldn't mind taking a walk herself. Sewing wasn't really her thing; she could reattach a button, but that was about the extent of her haberdashery skills.

"Well, ladies," she said, folding the shirt she had been working on and pushing herself to her feet, "it's been fun, but it appears the toddler has spoken."

Judith scurried off to her room, waiting for her impatiently in front of her closet. Andrea dressed her in her coat, hat, boots and gloves, then did the same for herself.

They were halfway out the door of the suite before she remembered that the rifle she had retired from active duty was in pieces inside the bedroom safe. Deciding that her Beretta was enough protection, she slung the holster low around her waist, zipping her jacket back up over the top of it.

The snow was beginning to melt, leaving behind patches of fresh green grass and brightly coloured wildflowers. Judith gravitated towards one of these, stooping to pluck the head off a buttercup and drop it innocently into her mouth.

Andrea sighed. "Don't eat those, Judy," she warned her, trailing after her. "Those are yucky."

Judith chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "Yucky," she declared, spitting it back out.

"I told you," Andrea said, laughing when the little girl made a face, poking out her tiny pink tongue. "Yucky."

This didn't deter Judith from sampling a blue bell, a daisy, a handful of grass, and what Andrea suspected might have been a bug.

"You are incorrigible," she told her with a grin.

Not recognising this word, the little girl just cocked her head to one side like a confused puppy, causing Andrea to laugh even harder.

They had reached the edge of the woods where Rick and the others were hunting; afraid of another accident like Carl's, Andrea stopped. "Okay, that's enough fresh air for today," she announced. "Let's go back inside and I'll fix you a snack."

Judith seemed to consider this, before deciding that she wasn't hungry. "No," she said, wandering into the trees.

Andrea wondered if it was possible that she had hit her terrible twos a little ahead of schedule. She was stubborn like most kids, but not wilfully disobedient. Andrea thought of Shane, and it occurred to her that there might be more of him in Judith than anyone was willing to admit.

"Come on," she coaxed her, holding her hand out to her. "_Judy_."

"No," Judith repeated, drifting further down the incline, out of her reach.

"Judith Lori Grimes," she called angrily, using her full name this time so she would know that Andrea wasn't playing anymore. "I said come here."

When it became clear that Judith wasn't going to do as she was told, Andrea started down the slope after her, choosing her footholds carefully to avoid losing her balance on the uneven ground. Her centre of gravity had shifted dramatically over the past few weeks, making her feel awkward and top-heavy, and the last thing she wanted was to take a tumble down the side of the mountain, especially while they were out here alone. Something like that could prove fatal, not just for the child she was carrying, but maybe even her as well.

She was still too far away to pick Judith up when she heard it: that familiar inhuman snarl that made her blood run cold and her heart almost stop beating.

Seconds later, a walker emerged from the trees less than ten feet from where Rick's daughter was standing, gnashing its teeth and heading right for her.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10.

Andrea didn't think, she just reacted, drawing her sidearm and putting a bullet square between the walker's glowing yellow eyes.

Judith, who had been too preoccupied with exploring her surroundings to notice that she was in danger, looked up at the sound of the gunshot, bursting into startled tears.

What had seemed like a good idea only moments before now felt like a gross miscalculation on Andrea's part; while there was every chance that the walker they had encountered was a lone roamer, Andrea had no intention of sticking around long enough to find out.

Throwing caution to the wind, she stumbled down the remainder of the slope, scooping the howling toddler up into her arms.

"It's okay, Judy," she whispered, holding her close, pressing a kiss into her hair. "We're all okay."

* * *

In the woods, Rick stopped when he heard a shot echo down the mountain.

"That sounded like it was coming from the lodge," Carl pointed out.

Everyone looked from him to Rick, grave-faced.

Rick thought of his friends, the group of strangers who had come to feel like his family. Then he thought of his actual family, of Andrea and Judith and the baby he still hadn't had a chance to fall in love with. He would never forgive himself if they were in trouble and he didn't at least try to help them.

"We have to go back," he told the others.

* * *

Before they could make their escape, a second walker had appeared, drawn to their location by the sound of the gunshot. Andrea couldn't hold Judith and climb at the same time so she pushed her up the slope ahead of her.

"Run back to the house!" she instructed the little girl once she was at the top. "I'll be right behind you." She risked a glance at the advancing walker, hoping that this wasn't a lie.

Judith started to do as she commanded, but after a few steps, she stopped, turning to look back at Andrea uncertainly to see if she was following.

"Go on! Go!" Andrea urged her. "Run!"

Judith disappeared from her line of sight, heading, Andrea hoped, in the direction of home.

Run, Judy, run, she thought, refusing to allow herself to consider to possibility that she might not make it.

She glanced back over her shoulder. There were three of them now. She couldn't remember how many rounds were left in her gun – she should have checked the chamber before they left, only she hadn't really expected to use it – but she did know that there wasn't enough to take on a herd if it came to that.

She fired two more shots, taking out the walkers closest to her, but when she tried to scramble up the slope herself, her hand slipped on the ice, coming away with nothing but a fistful of slush.

No, no, no, a voice in her head cried as she rolled back down.

She stuck her arm out to break her fall, dropping her gun in the process. Her palm hit the ground with a sickening crunch and white-hot pain shot from her wrist. An involuntary scream ripped from her throat and she prayed that Judith wouldn't hear it and turn around.

She managed to flip onto her back, cradling her ruined arm against her chest. The fourth walker was still coming. She spotted her gun, wedged at the base of a tree twenty or so feet down from where she lay now, but even if she could get to it, she couldn't bend her finger to pull the trigger. She could try to hold the walker off with her uninjured arm, but sooner or later she would get tired, and that's when it would make its move.

This is it, she thought. Game over.

Then: sorry, baby, I tried.

Her only consolation was that their deaths might serve as enough of a distraction for Judith to make it to safety.

She was bracing herself for the horror to come when she felt it: a soft thump just below her navel. Then another. Her baby, stretching its limbs as though awakening from a deep sleep, letting her know that it was still there, still alive, still counting on her for its continued existence. And despite the gravity of the situation, a laugh bubbled up from her chest.

What was I thinking? she chastised herself. I can't die. Not now. Not today.

She fumbled on the ground beside her until her hand closed over a large rock. Then, when the walker was almost upon her, poising itself to bite into her exposed throat, she swung her makeshift weapon as hard as she could. Her left-handed pitch wasn't as accurate as her right: she missed the temple, but succeeded in dislocating its jaw.

The blow knocked it sideways, giving her a chance to scramble up onto her knees. While it was still stunned, she brought the rock down on its head with a savage cry, again and again, smashing its skull open like a pumpkin.

Once it was well and truly dead, she tossed the rock aside and stood up, breathing heavily.

She must look a sight, she thought dryly as she dragged herself up the slope, dirty and dishevelled, her wrist – now tucked inside the zip of her jacket in lieu of a sling – swollen to an unnatural size, her face and clothes covered in blood like Carrie on prom night. She wouldn't blame Judith for being more afraid of her than she was of the creature that tried to eat her for lunch.

Fortunately, this wasn't the case. As soon as she saw Andrea coming towards her, the little girl threw herself at her, crying and hugging her legs.

"Come on, let's go find Uncle Hershel," Andrea said with a grimace, leading her back to the lodge.

* * *

Rick counted at least two more gunshots on the trek back to the car; he barely gave the others time to hop in before he was off, speeding up the mountain.

He didn't know what they were walking into, but he expected some kind of disturbance. Instead, the lodge was eerily silent, giving no indication of what might have occurred there.

He found his friends assembled in the common room, their faces drawn and worried for the first time in months. Only Judith seemed untroubled, sitting on the couch between Carol and Beth, contentedly eating goldfish crackers straight from the box.

It took him all of sixty seconds to notice that the only one missing was Andrea, the realisation hitting him like a sucker punch to the stomach. "What's going on?" he demanded, glancing wildly from one to the next. "Where is she?"

When no one seemed to know how to answer his question, Hershel stood up on his crutches, taking a step toward him. "There was an incident while you were gone," he began, but by then Rick was too agitated to wait for an explanation.

He ran down the hall to their suite, his legs turning to rubber at the sight of her, propped on a mound of pillows on the couch, her chest rising and falling steadily.

Whatever happened, she was alive, and that was all that mattered, he thought, but he couldn't take his eyes off her bandaged wrist, cradled gingerly in her other hand.

She was hurt. He knew he should let her rest, let her body heal, but he was suddenly overcome by the need to hear her voice. He wanted her to be the one to tell him that she was all right.

He knelt beside her, caressing her cheek with his palm. "Andrea," he whispered. "Baby, wake up."

She opened her eyes slowly. "Hey," she greeted him with a dopey smile.

Hershel must have given her something to help with the pain. Rick hoped that whatever it was, he made sure it was safe for the baby.

If there still was a baby, he thought with a depth of feeling that surprised him.

"What happened?"

"I fell," was all she said before her eyelids fluttered closed again, fighting sleep.

Rick's mouth went dry. "Is the baby…?" He trailed off, unsure of how to finish that sentence. After months of wishing that it didn't exist, he didn't know what to say now that it might not.

Her eyes snapped open again and she shook her head to clear it. "It's okay," she assured him. She grinned. "I felt it kick."

He wasn't prepared for the relief that flooded through him on hearing this. He realised then that some part of him did want it. He just didn't _want_ to want it if it meant that some day he might have to choose.

"What about you?" he asked. He took her arm gently, turning it so that he could examine her wrist. The part of her hand he could see poking out of the bandage had ballooned to twice its normal thickness. "Your wrist?"

"Hershel says it's probably broken," she told him, wincing as he placed it back on her chest, "but without an x-ray there's no way to be sure. We just have to hope the bone resets itself properly or my sniping days are over." She tried to make it sound like a joke but her eyes shone with tears.

"It could have been a lot worse," he reminded her. He laid a hand over her belly. "_A lot_ worse."

_I never asked for this, _he remembered complaining to her all those months ago._ I'm not even sure I want it._

The thought of ever saying those words made him feel sick with remorse.

"I know," she agreed. "Judy was with me. We were walking out in the grounds and we got attacked."

"By a walker?" he asked, stunned. He remembered the gunshots. "You shot it, though, right?" Although he couldn't help wondering why she of all people would need three bullets to take down a single walker.

"It wasn't just one, Rick," she corrected him. "It was a whole group. Four, maybe more. I lost my gun, almost didn't make it back. I really thought I was going to die this time."

Rick struggled to make sense of this information. The lodge was a refuge, a little piece of heaven, free from the hell that their world had become. Things like that just didn't happen here.

At least they hadn't until today.

"It's starting again, isn't it?" she asked quietly. "They're coming out of hibernation, or whatever you want to call it, and we're the breakfast buffet."

Suddenly Rick was the one who felt like crying.


	11. Chapter 11

_Sorry it's taken me so long to update! I haven't abandoned this story (or this pairing), I've just been working crazy 50 hour weeks which haven't left me much time or energy for writing!_

* * *

Chapter 11.

That evening, Rick gathered everyone together in the common room.

When he left her, Andrea had fallen back into a troubled sleep, but to his dismay, she wandered in just as he was calling the meeting to order, her wounded arm nestled in a sling fashioned from a spare bed sheet.

"What're you doing up?" he asked her.

"I'm not an invalid, Rick," she scoffed, but he couldn't help noting how tired and wan she looked, as though she had aged a decade in just a few hours.

"I know that, but you heard what Hershel said. You need to take it easy," he reminded her.

Without access to modern medical technology, there was no way to tell what effect her fall might have had on her pregnancy. While there was every chance that she was right and the baby was fine, he didn't think they could be too careful, especially under conditions such as these, where a premature delivery could prove fatal for both mother and child.

"I am taking it easy," she assured him. She lowered herself into the nearest armchair. "I'm just going to sit here and listen."

Judith, who until that moment had been dozing with her head on Beth's leg, perked up at the sound of Andrea's voice, sliding off the couch and running towards her.

"Judy!" Rick called, but it was too late: she was already on Andrea's lap.

"It's okay, Rick," Andrea assured him, wincing when in an attempt to get more comfortable, Judith jostled her sore arm.

"I missed you too," she told her, stroking her good hand through the toddler's dark curls.

She paused as something caught her eye. "What have you got in your hair, you little monkey?" she asked her, combing tiny sticks and fragments of leaves out of it with her fingers.

Rick couldn't help the smile that played at the corners of his lips as he watched their interaction. He had never considered Andrea as the mothering type until she came back from Woodbury and he saw how good she was with his then newborn daughter. She might not ooze maternal warmth like Carol, but he had no doubt that she loved that little girl as wholeheartedly as she loved her own unborn child; so much, in fact, that she risked both their lives to save hers.

He could hear the others talking quietly amongst themselves. Realising that they were still waiting for him to say something, he forced his attention back to the task at hand.

"You all l know what happened today," he began. All eyes turned to Andrea and Judith. "Now it might have been an isolated event or it might have been the beginning of something – there's no way to be sure. I called you together because we need to discuss how we're going to proceed as a group. The way I see it, we have two choices here – either we try to fortify this place against another attack or we start looking for one with better fences."

"You mean somewhere like the prison?" Maggie said angrily.

The others exchanged meaningful looks. Rick could tell what they were thinking: the prison where Hershel lost his leg, where Lori and T-Dog and Axel died, where they lived under constant threat of attack from both walkers and humans.

"What makes you think we'll find anything better than this?" Glenn piped up, jumping in to support his fiancée.

"I don't," Rick admitted. They had everything they needed here as long as they could find a way to keep the walkers out. "But it's not up to me to make that call. Whatever we do, it needs to be a group decision."

He looked to Hershel to see what he thought. "Hershel?"

The aging farmer glanced at Andrea and Judith with a sympathetic expression. "I vote we stay here for as long as we can."

Rick nodded his gratitude. The last thing he wanted to do was hit the road again with a very pregnant girlfriend – and eventually, a newborn – and a small child in tow.

"Daryl?"

"The old man's right," he agreed. "Ain't nothin' out there for us but more geeks."

"Michonne?"

"I was kinda getting used to not sleeping with one eye open," she admitted.

"Carl?"

"Judy should know what home feels like," he said simply.

Rick was proud of him for that.

"Glenn? Maggie?"

The young couple shared a look. "We like it here," Maggie said. "It reminds us of the farm."

Rick went around the circle, asking each of them in turn. It was unanimous.

He came to Andrea last. "Andrea?" he asked, even though her bandaged wrist and rapidly expanding belly seemed to speak for themselves.

She nodded her acquiescence.

"I guess it's settled then," he announced, although there was trepidation mixed in with his relief. Only time would tell if they were doing the right thing. "I'll take the first watch." His gaze travelled from one anxious face to another. "Who wants to go next?"

* * *

Rick was in Judith's room, getting his daughter ready for bed before he headed out for watch duty when he heard a metallic crash, followed by a string of expletives. He fastened the pin on her diaper hastily, glancing at the miniature pair of purple pyjamas laid out on the bed; deciding that it would take too long to coax her into them, he scooped her up and carried her out into the living room wearing only the diaper and a pale pink tank top.

Andrea was sitting at one end of the dining room table with the pieces of her rifle spread out in front of her. Rick watched her fumble with the barrel, trying to bolt it back into the stock with her left hand, cursing loudly when it slipped from her fingers, reigning screws down on the heavy wood.

"The baby has ears, you know," he reminded her, more amused than offended by her colourful language. "Judy too."

"It's not their ears I'm worried about," she said tersely, reaching for the barrel and beginning the whole process again.

Another abortive attempt later, she threw the stock onto the table with a groan of frustration, dropping her face into her hand.

Her back jerked and he thought she might be crying; he deposited Judith onto the rug, next to a pile of toys and walked over to her.

"Why don't you let me do that?" he offered, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"I don't need your help, Rick," she snapped, shaking it off. "I can do it myself." To illustrate her point, she picked both pieces up again.

Clearly you can't, he refrained from telling her as he watched her struggle with them, knowing that this would only piss her off further. What he said was, "Even if you can, you're hurt and you're pregnant. You're in no condition for watch duty." He had already arranged for Glenn to take the second shift.

She slammed the pieces of her gun down again. "Exactly."

It hit him then that this had less to do with the gun than it did with her. He pulled out the chair beside hers and sat down. "What is this really about?" he asked her.

"You know what this is about," she insisted, fidgeting with the barrel. Rolling it beneath her fingers, back and forth, back and forth. "This is about the fact that I've become a liability."

He reached for her hand, holding it steady. "Andrea…"

"Face it, Rick," she said, glancing up at him with a look of pure misery, "I can't shoot, I can barely run… If we go back out there now, I won't even make it through the week."

"Hey," he said in what he hoped was a soothing tone. "You were at the meeting. No one's thinking about going out there."

"Not yet," she agreed, "but we all know how this goes. Sooner or later, this place is going to get overrun, just like the Atlanta camp and the farm and the prison, and we'll be back on the road, sleeping in cars and eating dog food. And when it does, I don't want to be the one who slows us down enough to get us all killed."

"When did you become the pessimist?" he asked her, unable to mask his surprise at hearing her talk like this. He thought back to all the times she had tried to convince him that everything would be okay. He wondered if she had ever really believed that or if it was all for his benefit.

"When Judy and I almost died taking an afternoon stroll," she reminded him. Her gaze dropped to her belly and she caressed it sorrowfully. "You tried to tell me but I didn't want to listen. This world is no place to raise a child."

"It's a little late to be having second thoughts," he teased her gently, trying to lighten the mood a little.

"This isn't a joke, Rick," she complained. "I'm serious."

"So am I," he insisted. "You are not a liability, Andrea, any more than Judith or Hershel or this baby is. This group, we're a family, and families look out for each other.

"Right now you're the one who needs a little extra support, but in a few months, your arm will be healed and you will have given birth and then things can go back to normal. But until then, your most important job is taking care of yourself and our baby. Let me handle the rest."

She looked up at him and a slow smile spread over her face until she was grinning.

"What?" he asked her.

"You said 'our baby'."

"So? Unless there's something you're not telling me, that's what it is."

"It's just that I've never heard you call it that before," she explained. "Usually it's just 'it' or 'the baby'."

He mentally replayed their last few conversations on the subject, his heart sinking as he realised that she was right. He had never given her any indication that he was happy they were having a baby together; in fact, how many times had he said just the opposite?

It was a miracle that she hadn't left him a long time ago. He still wasn't sure why she hadn't.

"God, Andrea, I am so sorry. I've been such an asshole to you."

"You're not an asshole, Rick," she insisted, even though he distinctly remembered her calling him one after he responded to her news by suggesting she have an abortion.

"Yes, I am, or at least I was. I haven't been there for you. Not like I should.

"I'm not proud of it, but when you first told me you were pregnant, I prayed that you were wrong, or that you would have a miscarriage," he admitted, a fresh wave of shame flooding through him, forcing him to look away. "I thought it would be better for everyone – the baby included – if it was never born. But when I saw you yesterday, all I could think about was how close I came to losing both of you."

He placed his hand on her belly, over his unborn child, wishing that he could take back every terrible thing he had ever thought and said about it.

"I've tried not to care about this baby, but I do, and that terrifies me because I can't protect either of you from all the things that could go wrong."

Rick wasn't sure which was more painful: Andrea's silent resentment of him over the past few months or the sympathy he could see in her eyes now.

"I'm a big girl, Rick. I don't need you to protect me."

"I know," he agreed. And he did. If their baby only inherited one thing from her, he hoped it was her fighting spirit, because then he would never have to worry about it growing up in this world. "But that doesn't mean I'll stop trying."


	12. Chapter 12

_Who's still with me?_

* * *

Chapter 12.

In the wake of the attack on Andrea and Judith, the survivors took up residence on higher floors. At the same time, Rick began taking small groups out on scavenging missions, scrounging for materials they could use to erect a barrier between them and the outside world.

One night not long after she had entered the twenty-eighth week of her pregnancy, Andrea woke to find Rick's side of the bed empty. She struggled into a sitting position, scanning the darkened room for him, relieved when she spotted him silhouetted against the open window.

"Rick?"

He turned at the sound of his name. "Hey."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he assured her, forcing a tranquil expression onto his face. "Go back to sleep."

She knew he was lying. If nothing was wrong, then what was he doing out of bed at this godforsaken hour? "You were staring at the wall again, weren't you?" It was more of a statement than a question.

He sighed. "I really thought we'd have it done by now," he admitted.

Almost two months into the project, working from sun up to sun down, and they'd barely made it halfway around.

"It would be a big enough job for ten men, and there's only four of you," she reminded him. "Eight if you count the women." She had offered to help too now that her wrist was more or less healed, but no one would let her.

"We need to find a bigger group," he told her. "It's the only way we're gonna survive." It wasn't the first time he'd made a comment along those lines. He'd put the idea to the group at dinner the week before, only to have it unanimously shot down.

His eyes had taken on that intense look. The one some would call crazy. Obsessive. Andrea had been seeing that look a lot more since the attack.

"Do you really think now is the time, Rick?" she asked him, fighting to keep the exasperation out of her voice. "It's the middle of the night, and you're exhausted. Come back to bed. We'll figure out the rest in the morning."

He remained stubbornly fixed to the spot. "I can't."

"Why not?" She tossed the covers aside and slid out of bed, padding over to the window to look.

A pack of walkers roughly the size of the one that had attacked her and Judith had breached the opening in the wall, and were now assembled outside the lodge.

"Shit." Andrea shrank back from the window before they could see her. "How long have they been out there?"

"Long enough."

"What do you think they're doing?" she asked softly.

"I don't know, but whatever it is, I don't like it." He turned away from the window. "I'm going to talk to Daryl, see what he thinks. You should try to get some more sleep."

"Like hell." Andrea's rifle was propped against the dresser, within easy reach of the bed; she snatched it up by the barrel and carried it back to the window, bracing the forend against the sill.

But before she could take the first shot, she felt Rick's hand close over her shoulder, pulling her gently away from the weapon. "Don't," he warned her.

"What happened to having a zero tolerance policy?" she complained. She was pretty sure that if they let even one walker go, they would live to regret it.

"We're safe in here for now," he reminded her. "No need to risk attracting more."

What he said made perfect sense, but that didn't mean she was happy about it. She cast a disgruntled look in his direction, silently withdrawing her gun until he gave her the word.

Judith chose that moment start wailing for their attention.

"I'll go," Andrea told Rick.

But just in case, she took her rifle with her.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Rick returned to the suite with Daryl in tow. Andrea had installed herself in front of the big bay window in the living room where she could keep an eye on the walkers outside. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing that he had a camera because it was one of the strangest images he had ever seen: her more than seven months pregnant, bouncing a fussy toddler on one hip while simultaneously trying to peer through the scope of her rifle.

"She okay?" Rick asked her.

"Yeah. She was just having a nightmare," Andrea explained absently without lifting her eye from the viewfinder.

Aren't we all? Rick thought wryly.

"There're more of them now," Andrea told them. "They look like they're organising themselves. I've never seen anything like it."

Rick didn't like the sound of that at all. "Let me see."

She stepped back, and he and Daryl took turns peering through the scope.

It went against everything Rick thought he knew about walkers, but there did appear to be some kind of primitive communication happening. How else did they know to gather there?

"What're we going to do?" Andrea asked after a moment, still rocking Judith, who had stopped crying and was whimpering softly with her thumb in her mouth. "We can't just leave them. What if they try to get in?"

There was only one thing to do. "We need to take a group out," Rick announced, "pick them off by hand before their numbers get out of control."

"I agree," Daryl said.

"Fine, then I'll stay here and cover you," Andrea told them.

She hadn't fired a gun in almost two months. "Your wrist…" Rick started to say, but she cut him off.

"Is fine," she insisted, her expression coolly defiant, daring him to contradict her.

After watching her struggle with delicate tasks like writing and cutting up food, he wasn't sure he believed her, but he knew better than to voice his scepticism.

"If that's settled then let's roll," Daryl said.

"Can you give us a minute?" Rick asked him.

"I'll take Lil Asskicker to Carol's room," he offered.

"Thanks." Andrea passed the little girl carefully over to him.

Neither of them spoke until the door closed behind him. Then Andrea took Rick's hand and placed it against her belly, where their unborn child was kicking furiously. "She can feel my heart racing."

He regarded her with a quizzical smile. "She?" It was the first time he could recall hearing her attach a gender-specific pronoun to the baby. He wondered if that meant she was hoping for a little girl of her own. He'd never thought to ask her. Part of him was still on tenterhooks, waiting for the day when it all fell apart again.

She shrugged. "Just a feeling. Stay safe, okay?"

"You too." He cupped her cheek in his palm, kissing her sweetly. "I love you."

Her beautiful blue-green eyes clouded with anger. "Don't," she whispered, shaking her head vehemently.

He pressed a soothing kiss to her forehead, letting his lips linger there for a moment. "I'll see you both soon."

"You better," she told him. And with that, she turned around, bending back over her rifle, unwilling – or unable – to watch him go.


	13. Chapter 13

_Phew! Action-y chapters are hard to write!_

* * *

Chapter 13.

Andrea clicked the safety off and waited.

She watched Rick creep around the building through the scope of her rifle, followed closely by Carl and Daryl. Michonne and Tyreese appeared from the other direction, keeping to the shadows. Each of them carried some kind of melee weapon, from a sword to a mallet, quietly disposing of any walker that wandered too close.

The two groups converged somewhere in the middle, turning their backs on each other to form a tight circle. The flock had nearly doubled in size in the time it took Rick and Daryl to round up the others; there were at least twenty of them now, maybe more. Scenting fresh meat, they stop shuffled around aimlessly in front of the lodge, lurching towards the survivors instead.

Andrea kept her index finger braced on the trigger as she watched her friends hack and slash their way through the first wave of attackers, doing their best to thin the herd. But for every walker they managed to take out of commission, it seemed that another two shambled out of the woods, swelling their ranks to an even more disproportionate number.

Rick was struggling to hold off a trio of walkers when one of these new arrivals lumbered up behind him.

Turn around, Rick, Andrea pleaded silently, sending the thought out to him.

He buried his machete in the skull of the walker closest to him, blissfully unaware that an even bigger danger lurked in his blind spot.

She screamed his name, trying to warn him, but he was too far away to hear her.

Andrea's finger tensed on the trigger.

_No need to risk attracting more_, he had said the last time she tried to shoot one.

But that was before, when they thought they could wipe them out without too much trouble. She weighed up her options, and quickly decided that there _was_ no option. She couldn't just sit there and watch while the man she loved – the father of her child – was torn apart.

She took the shot.

And missed by a good ten inches.

Rick recovered his knife, going after walker number two.

Andrea fired again.

"Shit," she muttered as the bullet skimmed the top of the walker's head, messing up its bad old lady perm.

Rick still hadn't seen it, decapitating the third walker, and stabbing its disembodied head for good measure.

The old lady walker was almost upon him now. Another sixty seconds and it would all be over.

Andrea flexed her injured wrist, willing it to work properly. Concentrate, she admonished herself. You can do this. You _have_ to do this.

She adjusted the scope a fraction of an inch and fired for a third time.

Bullseye.

* * *

Rick felt the gust of wind as the bullet whizzed past his ear.

He spun around to see a walker go down in an explosion of blood and brain matter.

Andrea.

His gaze travelled up the side of the lodge, to the fifth floor, where they had resided for the past two months. He couldn't make her out from this distance, but it was comforting to know that she was up there somewhere, watching over him.

His very own guardian angel.

With this thought in mind, he raised his machete and dove back into the fray.

* * *

Andrea sagged against the window sill with relief, expelling the breath she was holding, her hand drifting unconsciously to her belly, where her baby was still kicking up a storm.

"Did you see that?" she asked it with a grin. "Mommy's back."

But her joy was short-lived as walkers began to stream in from every direction, attracted by the gunshots, or maybe just the sounds of a skirmish.

She bent back over her rifle, firing on them until the magazine was empty, and she had to run to the bedroom for more cartridges.

When she returned to the window, the battle was still raging down below. She reloaded quickly, burning off another dozen rounds, but despite the group's best efforts, it wasn't long before the lodge was surrounded.

She heard the sound of glass shattering as a group of walkers infiltrated the first storey windows, and hoped that wherever Carol was hiding with Judith, she had thought to blockade the door.

* * *

Rick knew a losing battle when he saw one.

Glenn and Maggie had joined the fight shortly after Andrea, but they were still outnumbered almost ten to one.

"That's enough!" he called to the others. "We have to evacuate! NOW!"

He drew his pistol and put a bullet in a walker that had stumbled between him and Glenn. "You and Maggie make sure Hershel and Beth get out safely," he told him.

Glenn nodded and ran off in search of his fiancée, and Rick turned his attention to Daryl, who was grappling with a walker to his left. "Daryl, you and Carl find Carol and Judith and go! Don't wait for me."

Daryl plucked an arrow from the quiver on his back and slammed it through the sweet spot on the walker's forehead. "Where will you be?" he asked, using the body to trip up some of its advancing comrades.

Rick was already making for the lodge. "I'm going up to get Andrea," he yelled back over his shoulder.

* * *

Andrea was still hunched over her rifle, sniping off any walker that tried to get into the building when Rick burst through the door, breathing heavily.

"Get your gun and let's go!" he told her, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure nothing had followed him.

She stared at him stupidly. "Go? Go where?"

"I don't know," he admitted, "but we can't stay here."

Not again, she thought. Not this time. She shook her head obstinately. "We took a vote," she reminded him. "We agreed that we would stay here and defend our home."

"And we tried, but there's too many of them," he insisted. "We don't have enough ammo to take on a herd this size."

He grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet, shoving the rifle into her hands. "Come on."

They raced down the hall, barricading themselves in the stairwell, which Rick had managed to seal off before making his ascent.

He ran down the stairs two at a time, while she took them at half the pace. "You need to keep up," he warned her whenever she started to lag behind.

He sounded like a pitiless personal trainer. "This would be easier if I wasn't so out of shape," she complained through gritted teeth. She felt a sharp pain deep in her side, and prayed to God that it wasn't a contraction.

He paused when he reached the bottom, waiting impatiently for her to catch up. "It won't be much longer before this place is completely overrun, and I don't want to be here when that happens."

Descending the final stairs, she realised what he was talking about. She could hear them snapping and snarling on the other side of the door that separated her and Rick from the lobby.

"I wish there was another way to do this, but we're gonna have to fight our way out," he told her, pressing the machete into her palm.

She glanced from the weapon, back up to him warily. "What about you?" she asked. "If you think I'm letting you sacrifice—"

He unsheathed a small hunting knife from his belt, holding it up in response.

"Stick close, but if something goes wrong, I want you to cut and run. You've got the baby to think about," he reminded her, glancing down at her rounded abdomen with an inscrutable look.

"So do you," she insisted. "Let's just all make it out of here, okay?"

He nodded, reaching for the lock. "Ready?" he asked her, gripping his knife with the other hand.

"As I'll ever be," she agreed, flashing him a tense smile. She took a deep breath and raised her own weapon.

"Good." He threw open the door.

They were surrounded immediately.

Andrea swung the machete as hard as she could, cleaving the skulls of two walkers in quick succession.

Beside her, she heard Rick grunt as he did away with a third, hurriedly moving on to the next.

Andrea struck another blow on an unsuspecting walker, and was rewarded with another pain low in her belly, sharp enough to cause her to cry out this time.

Rick called her name, his head snapping in her direction.

"I'm okay," she assured him, brandishing the machete again as two more walkers decided to take their chances with her, but she sensed a change come over him after that.

He fought like a berserker to get to her side, swapping his little knife for the machete so that he could clear a path to the exit. He didn't wait for her to keep up this time, seizing her arm and propelling her along with him.

Emerging from the building ahead of him, Andrea glanced around for their friends, but as far as she could tell they were the last ones out. Two of the cars had already gone. Only theirs remained, waiting to take them to safety.

"I'll drive," Rick told her, digging the keys out of his pocket as they sprinted for the parking lot.

The pain had subsided a little by then, but Andrea didn't argue, collapsing gratefully into the passenger's seat beside him.

He gunned the engine and they peeled out at breakneck speed, tearing down the road in pursuit of the others.

As they drove away, Andrea glanced back over her shoulder, taking one last look at the place they had called home before they turned the corner, leaving it to the walkers.

* * *

_Who else wishes this had happened in the season 2 finale? ;)_


	14. Chapter 14

_Thanks for your reviews, guys. And for all the Andrea love. It makes me feel better to know that I'm not the only one who's still angry about the way the writers treated her on the show!_

* * *

Chapter 14.

Andrea hadn't spoken a word since they left the lodge.

Rick glanced over at her, wondering if she had fallen asleep, but her eyes remained open, her head leaning against the glass, staring listlessly into the barren woodland that flanked the empty highway.

"You wanna talk about what happened back there?" he asked her. "You're not...?" He trailed off as though afraid that saying the words might somehow make them true.

"In labour?" she finished robotically, without moving.

Rick had been so focused on ensuring that they both escaped with their lives intact that that possibility hadn't even entered his head.

"I was going to say infected," he admitted. The thought that after all that, he might not be able to save her – save _them_ – was almost too awful to contemplate, and yet he had to be sure.

She turned her head to look at him. "I wasn't bitten," she assured him, and he felt the painful knot in his chest loosen slightly. "I thought I might be having contractions, but whatever it was, it's over now."

"Are you sure?" He studied her expression, searching for any sign that she wasn't being honest with him.

"Yes," she agreed emphatically, but just in case, Rick made a mental note to ask Hershel to check her out the next time he saw him.

If he's even still alive, he added ruefully. Until they met up with the rest of the group, they had no way of knowing who made it out and who didn't.

He must have looked dubious because she insisted: "I feel fine, and judging by the way she keeps kicking me in the ribs, the baby's okay too. At least for now."

She lifted her head, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "What are we going to do, Rick?"

"Well, first we find the others," he answered slowly. "Beyond that…" He sighed, wishing he could give her the reassurance she was seeking. "I honestly don't know. We keep driving, I guess. See what's out there. Maybe there's a community we can join, or another place like the lodge..." He knew it wasn't what she wanted to hear, but it was the truth, and that was all he had right now.

She swallowed hard and nodded, wiping away bitter tears.

Rick reached for her hand. "Hey," he said, hating to see her look so defeated. "We'll get through this."

He squeezed her fingers, but she didn't squeeze back, closing her eyes and returning her head to the glass.

"I wish I still believed that," she told him softly.

* * *

The sun was rising by the time Rick and Andrea spotted their friends' cars parked outside a dilapidated gas station.

Daryl appeared as Rick was pulling in beside them, lowering his crossbow once they were close enough for him to confirm their identities. Rick could see Michonne and Tyreese lurking behind him, ready to defend the entrance if the need arose.

A moment later, Carl pushed between them. "Dad!" he cried, charging at Rick so eagerly that he almost knocked him off his feet.

"It's good to see you too, son," Rick said, holding him for much longer than was strictly manly.

Carl didn't seem to mind, hugging him back hard like he had when he was a little boy, and Rick realised that it must have been a long night for him too.

"Is Judy okay?" he asked him, looking around for his daughter.

He was relieved when one by one, the others emerged – all of them alive and accounted for –, Carol with the teary-eyed toddler clinging to her neck.

Andrea reached them first. "There's my brave girl," she cooed, taking Judith from Carol and settling her on top of her belly.

She brought her over to Rick, and still holding onto Carl with one arm, he embraced all four of the people he loved, thrilled to have his family back healthy and whole.

"Glad you two could join us," Hershel teased them with a wry smile from where he stood over by the door. "Or, I should say, you _three_."

Rick looked from Andrea to each of his children and grinned. "So am I," he agreed.

* * *

"Braxton-Hicks," was Hershel's pronouncement after he had examined Andrea in the gas station's tiny back office. "Probably brought on by all that activity. It's very common during the third trimester. Just your body's way of preparing itself."

Rick had insisted on staying this time, positioning himself in the corner where he could listen and observe without getting in the way.

"See?" Andrea said, replacing her shirt and smoothing it down over her belly. "I told you it was nothing to worry about."

For now, Rick agreed silently, but that day was looming closer.

"Still, it won't be long now," Hershel reminded them, echoing Rick's thoughts. "Eight weeks, give or take. That's provided we have the dates right."

Rick frowned. "You mean it could be less than that?" he asked. "How long are we talking?" He was hoping to have them settled somewhere else long before the baby showed up.

"I don't want to alarm you, but it could be closer to six," Hershel agreed. "The due date I gave you is just an estimate. Without an ultrasound, it's hard to be sure."

Off their troubled looks he added: "The only reason I'm telling you this is because we need to come up with some sort of plan. It goes without saying that the last thing any of us wants is to be caught off guard like we were when Judith was born."

Rick's stomach twisted with anxiety at this casual allusion to his wife's death. Every day, it felt more and more as if history were repeating, only God help him if he lost his new love the same way.

"There is nothing wrong with my maths," Andrea complained when Hershel left them to talk it over in private, sliding off the desk before Rick could reach her to help her down.

"You know that's not what he was saying," he insisted. "He just wants to make sure we're prepared."

"Prepared?" she scoffed. "We live on the road and we don't even have a car seat. We don't have a crib, or diapers, or formula – we don't have anything anymore. All that stuff we collected, Rick…" Her voice broke and she bit her lip, struggling not to cry again.

Rick was suddenly aware that their roles had shifted during the night. Up until today, she had been the strong one, holding herself together while he fell apart. Now it was his turn to be strong for her.

He took hold of her bicep gently, pulling her against him. "So we'll find more," he said, folding her into his arms. "There has to be a department store somewhere near here."

"What if everything's gone?" she asked tearfully, her voice muffled by his chest, and he realised she wasn't just talking about baby stuff anymore. "I know I was the one who said we should do this, but that was when I thought things would be different. I thought we would be ready."

He hugged her tighter, running his fingers through her hair as he did his best to soothe her. "We will be, I promise," he told her. "I don't know how yet, but I'm going to make sure of it."


End file.
